GIFT  OF 
Le y 1 i e    Van  Ness    Denman 


PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


"WORRY:  THE  DISEASE  OF  THE  AGE." 
"EVOLUTION:  THE  MASTER  KEY." 
"HEALTH,  STRENGTH,  AND  HAPPINESS. 

ETC.,  ETC. 


PARENTHOOD 

AND 

RACE    CULTURE 

An  Outline  of  Eugenics 


BY 
CALEB  WILLIAMS  SALEEBY 

M.D.,  CH.B.,  F.Z.R.EDiN. 

FELLOW  OF  THE  OBSTETRICAL  SOCIETY   OF  EDINBURGH, 
MEMBER   OF  COUNCIL  OF  THE  EUGENICS  EDUCATION   SOCIETY, 

THE  SOCIOLOGICAL  SOCIETY, 
THE  NATIONAL  LEAGUE  FOR  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION  AND 

IMPROVEMENT, 

MEMBER  OF  THE  ROYAL  INSTITUTION, 
THE  SOCIETY  FOR  THE  STUDY   OF  INEBRIETY,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1910 


C6pyright  1909  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Second  Printing  February  1910 


GIFT  OP 


THIS   BOOK  IS 

Dedicate?) 

TO 
FRANCIS   GALTON 

THE 
AUGUST  MASTER  OF  ALL  EUGENISTS 


M103874 


CONTENTS 

PART   I 
THE   THEORY  OF   EUGENICS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    INTRODUCTORY i 

II.    THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE ig 

III.  NATURAL  SELECTION  AND  THE  LAW  OF  LOVE      .  39 

IV.  THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND 59 

V.    THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN 80 

VI.    THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY 98 

VII.    HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE 113 

VIII.    EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE 137 

IX.    THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD 166 

X.    MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM 183 

PART    II 
THE  PRACTICE  OF  EUGENICS 

XI.    NEGATIVE  EUGENICS 199 

XII.    SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE 213 

XIII.  THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL 237 

XIV.  THE  RACIAL  POISONS  :  LEAD,  NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS  285 

XV.    NATIONAL  EUGENICS  :   RACE  CULTURE  AND  HIS- 
TORY        294 

XVI.    NATIONAL  EUGENICS  :    MR.  BALFOUR  ON  DECA- 
DENCE      323 

XVII.    THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE 333 

APPENDIX  A  :    CONCERNING  BOOKS  TO  READ      ...  353 

"           B:    THE  EUGENICS  EDUCATION  SOCIETY      .  373 
iii 


PREFACE 

THIS  book,  a  first  attempt  to  survey  and  define  the 
whole  field  of  eugenics,  appears  in  the  year  which  finds 
us  celebrating  the  centenary  of  the  birth  of  Charles 
Darwin  and  the  jubilee  of  the  publication  of  The  Origin 
of  Species.  It  is  a  humble  tribute  to  that  immortal 
name,  for  it  is  based  upon  the  idea  of  selection  for 
parenthood  as  determining  the  nature,  fate  and  worth 
of  living  races,  which  is  Darwin's  chief  contribution  to 
thought,  and  which  finds  in  eugenics  its  supreme  appli- 
cation. The  book  is  also  a  tribute  to  the  august  pio- 
neer who  initiated  the  modern  study  of  eugenics  in  the 
light  of  his  cousin's  principle.  A  few  years  ago  I  all 
but  persuaded  Mr.  Galton  himself  to  write  a  general  in- 
troduction to  eugenics,  but  he  felt  bound  to  withdraw 
from  that  undertaking,  and  has  given  us  instead  his 
Memories,  which  we  could  ill  have  spared. 

The  present  volume  seeks  to  supply  what  is  un- 
doubtedly a  real  need  at  the  present  day  —  a  general 
introduction  to  eugenics  which  is  at  least  considered 
and  responsible.  I  am  indebted  to  more  than  one  pair 
of  searching  and  illustrious  eyes,  which  I  may  not 
name,  for  reading  the  proofs  of  this  volume.  My  best 
hopes  for  its  utility  are  based  upon  this  fact.  If  there 
be  any  other  reason  for  hope  it  is  that  during  the  last 
six  years  I  have  not  only  written  incessantly  on  eugen- 
ics, but  have  spoken  upon  various  aspects  of  it  some 

vii 


via  PREFACE 

hundreds  of  times  to  audiences  as  various  as  one  can 
well  imagine  —  a  mainly  clerical  assembly  at  Lambeth 
Palace  with  the  Primate  in  the  Chair,  drawing-rooms 
of  title,  working-class  audiences  from  the  Clyde  to  the 
Thames.  It  has  been  my  rule  to  invite  questions 
whenever  it  was  possible.  Such  a  discipline  is  in- 
valuable. It  gives  new  ideas  and  points  of  views, 
discovers  the  existing  forms  of  prejudice,  sharply  cor- 
rects the  tendency  to  partial  statement.  It  is  my  hope 
that  these  many  hours  of  cross-examination  will  be 
profitable  to  the  present  reader. 

It  has  been  sought  to  define  the  scope  of  eugenics, 
and  my  consistent  aim  has  been,  if  possible,  to  preserve 
its  natural  unity  without  falling  into  the  error,  which  I 
seem  to  see  almost  everywhere,  of  excluding  what  is 
strictly  eugenic.  Our  primary  idea,  beyond  dispute,  is 
selection  for  parenthood  based  upon  the  facts  of  hered- 
ity. This,  however,  is  not  an  end,  but  a  means. 
Some  eugenists  seem  to  forget  the  distinction.  Our 
end  is  a  better  race.  If  then,  beyond  selecting  for 
parenthood,  it  be  desirable  to  take  care  of  those  se- 
lected —  as,  for  instance,  to  protect  the  expectant 
mother  from  alcohol,  lead  or  syphilis  —  that  is  strict 
eugenics  on  any  definition  worth  a  moment's  notice. 
It  then  appears,  of  course,  that  our  demands  come  into 
contact  with  those  prejudices  which  political  parties 
call  their  principles.  A  given  eugenic  proposal  or 
argument,  for  instance,  may  be  stamped  as  "  Social- 
ist "  or  as  "  Individualist/'  and  people  who  have  la- 
belled their  eyes  with  these  catchwords,  which  eugenics 
will  ere  long  make  obsolete,  proceed  to  judge  eugenics 
by  them.  But  the  question  is  not  whether  a  given  pro- 


PREFACE  ix 

posal  is  socialistic,  individualistic  or  anything  else, 
but  is  it  eugenic.  If  it  is  eugenic,  that  is  final.  To 
this  all  parties  will  come,  and  by  this  all  parties  will  be 
judged.  The  question  is  not  whether  eugenics  is,  for 
instance,  socialist,  but  whether  socialism  is  eugenic. 
I  claim  for  eugenics  that  it  is  the  final  and  only  judge 
of  all  proposals  and  principles,  however  labelled,  new 
or  old,  orthodox  or  heterodox.  Some  years  ago  I 
ventured  to  coin  the  word  eugenist,  which  is  now  the 
accepted  term.  With  that  label  I  believe  any  man  or 
woman  may  well  be  content.  If  this  be  granted,  the 
old  catchwords  and  the  bias  they  create  forgotten,  we 
may  be  prepared  to  consider  what  the  scope  of  eugen- 
ics really  is. 

Eugenics  is  not,  for  instance,  a  sub-section  of  applied 
mathematics.  It  is  at  once  a  science,  and  a  religion, 
based  upon  the  laws  of  life,  and  recognising  in  them 
the  foundation  of  society.  We  shall  some  day  have  a 
eugenic  sociology,  to  which  the  first  part  of  this  vol- 
ume seeks  to  contribute:  and  the  sociology  and  poli- 
tics which  have  not  yet  discovered  that  man  is  mortal 
will  go  to  their  own  place. 

Only  when  we  begin  to  think  and  work  continuously 
at  eugenics  is  its  range  revealed.  The  present  volume 
is  a  mere  introduction  to  the  principles  of  the  subject : 
the  full  elucidation  of  its  practice  is  a  problem  for  gen- 
erations to  come.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  set  logical  limits 
to  our  inquiry.  We  may  say  that  eugenics  deals  with 
conceptions :  and  that  the  care  of  the  expectant  mother 
is  outside  its  scope:  but  of  what  use  is  it  to  have  a 
eugenic  conception  if  its  product  is  thereafter  to  be 
ruined  by,  for  instance,  the  introduction  of  lead  into 


x  PREFACE 

the  mother's  organism  ?  Again,  the  care  of  the  indi- 
vidual is,  in  part,  a  eugenic  concern:  for  if  we  desire 
his  offspring  we  desire  that  he  shall  not  contract  trans- 
missible disease  nor  vitiate  his  tissues  with  such  a  racial 
poison  as  alcohol.  Plainly,  everything  that  affects 
every  possible  parent  is  a  matter  of  eugenic  concern: 
and  not  only  those  factors  which  affect  the  choice  for 
parenthood. 

It  follows  that  the  second  portion  of  this  volume, 
which  deals  with  the  practice  of  eugenics,  cannot  be 
more  than  merely  indicative.  In  the  available  space  it 
has  been  attempted  to  define  certain  constituents  of 
practical  eugenics,  but  in  any  case  the  entire  ground 
has  not  been  surveyed.  The  concept  of  the  racial  poi- 
sons may  be  commended  to  special  consideration. 
Whether  a  poison  be  so-called  "  chemical,"  as  lead,  or 
no  less  chemical,  as  the  poison  of  syphilis,  is  of  great 
practical  importance,  because  of  the  infection  involved 
in  the  second  case :  but,  in  principle,  both  cases  belong 
to  the  same  category.  Sooner  or  later,  eugenists  must 
face  the  transmissible  infections,  and  repudiate  as  hide- 
ous and  devilish  the  so-called  morality  which  dis- 
countenances any  attempt  to  save  unborn  innocence 
from  a  nameless  fate.  He  or  she  who  would  rather 
leave  this  matter  is  placing  "  religion  "  or  "  morality  " 
or  "  politics  "  above  the  welfare  of  the  life  to  come, 
and  therein  continuing  the  daily  prostitution  of  those 
great  names. 

Again,  the  practice  of  eugenics  may  be  commended 
and  accepted  as  the  business  of  the  patriot:  and  two 
chapters  have  been  devoted  to  the  question  as  seen 
from  the  national  point  of  view.  I  am  of  nothing 


PREFACE  xi 

more  certain  than  that  the  choice  for  Great  Britain 
to-day  is  between  national  eugenics  and  the  fate  of  all 
her  Imperial  predecessors  from  Babylon  to  Spain. 
The  whole  book  might  have  been  written  from  this 
standpoint,  but  such  a  book  would  have  been  beneath 
the  true  eugenic  plane,  which  is  not  national  but  hu- 
man. I  believe  in  the  patriotism  of  William  Watson, 
who  desires  the  continuance  of  his  country  because,  as 
he  addresses  her, 

"  O  England,  should'st  thou  one  day  fall, 

Justice  were  thenceforth  weaker  throughout  all 
The  world,  and  truth  less  passionately  free, 
And  God  the  poorer  for  thine  overthrow." 

This  is  a  patriotism  as  splendid  and  vital  as  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  music-halls  and  the  political  and  jour- 
nalistic makers  of  wars  is  foul  and  fatal :  and  it  is  only 
in  terms  of  such  patriotism  that  the  appeal  to  love  of 
country  is  permissible  in  the  advocacy  of  eugenics, 
which  is  a  concern  for  all  mankind. 

The  prophet  of  that  kind  of  Imperialism  which  has 
destroyed  so  many  Empires,  has  lately  approved  the 
emigration  of  our  best  to  the  Colonies,  on  the  ground 
that  "it  is  good  to  give  the  second  eleven  a  chance." 
But  as  students  of  history  know,  it  is  at  the  heart  that 
Empires  rot.  The  case  of  Ireland  is  at  present  an 
insoluble  one  because  the  emigration  of  the  worthiest 
has  had  full  sway.  So  with  the  agricultural  intellect : 
the  "  first  eleven  "  having  gone  to  the  towns.  Rome 
sent  her  "  first  eleven  "  to  her  Colonies :  If  you  were 
not  good  enough  to  be  a  Roman  soldier  you  could  at 
least  remain  and  be  a  Roman  father :  and  the  children 


xii  PREFACE 

of  such  fathers  perished  in  the  downfall  of  the  Em- 
pire which  they  could  no  longer  sustain.  I  can  im- 
agine no  more  foolish  or  disastrous  advice  than  this 
of  Mr.  Kipling's,  in  commending  that  transportation 
of  the  worthiest  which,  thoroughly  enough  persisted 
in,  must  inevitably  mean  our  ruin. 

The  national  aspect  of  eugenics  suggests  its  inter- 
national aspect,  and  its  inter-racial  aspect.  Not  hav- 
ing spent  six  weeks  rushing  through  the  United  States, 
I  am  unfortunately  dubious  as  to  the  worth  of  any 
opinions  I  may  possess  regarding  the  most  urgent  form 
of  this  question  to-day.  I  mistrust  not  merely  the 
brilliant  students  who,  unhampered  by  biological 
knowledge,  pierce  to  the  bottom  of  this  question  in  the 
course  of  such  a  tour,  but  also  the  humanitarian  bias 
of  those  who,  like  M.  Finot,  or  the  distinguished 
American  sociologist,  Mr.  Graham  Brooks,  would  al- 
most have  us  believe  that  the  negro  is  mentally  and 
morally  the  equal  of  the  Caucasian.  Least  of  all  does 
one  trust  the  vulgar  opinions  of  the  man  in  the  street. 
Wisdom  on  this  matter  waits  for  the  advent  of  real 
knowledge.  Similarly  in  the  matter  of  Caucasian  — 
Mongolian  unions.  I  question  whether  any  living 
man  knows  enough  to  warrant  the  expression  of  any 
decided  opinion  on  this  subject.  Merely  I  here  recog- 
nize miscegenation  in  general  as  a  problem  in  eugenics, 
to  which  increasing  attention  must  yearly  be  devoted. 
But  it  would  have  been  ridiculous  to  attempt  to  deal 
with  that  great  subject  here.  As  for  the  marriage  of 
cousins,  to  take  the  opposite  case,  I  always  reply  to 
the  question,  "  Should  cousins  marry  ?  "  that  it  depends 
upon  the  cousins.  The  good  qualities  of  a  good  stock, 


PREFACE  xv 

between  this  school  and  that  of  scientific  workers  are 
to  be  regretted  by  the  eugenist;  but  it  is  for  him  to 
accept  and  use  knowledge  of  eugenic  significance  no 
matter  by  what  method  it  has  been  obtained.  Directly 
he  fails  to  do  so  he  ceases  to  be  a  Eugenist  and  becomes 
the  ordinary  partisan.  No  reference  is  made  in  the 
following  pages,  for  instance,  to  the  law  of  ancestral 
inheritance,  formulated  by  the  Master  to  whom  the 
volume  is  dedicated  and  of  whom  all  eugenists  are  the 
followers.  I  believe  that  law,  despite  its  beauty,  to  be 
without  basis  in  fact  and  incompatible  with  demon- 
strated Mendelian  phenomena :  and  though  the  book  is 
dedicated  to  Mr.  Galton,  it  is  more  deeply  dedicated  to 
the  Future.  This,  indeed,  is  the  Credo  of  the  Eugen- 
ist :  Expecto  resurrectionem  mortuorum,  et  vltam  ven- 
turi  saeculi. 

Woman  is  Nature's  supreme  instrument  of  the  fu- 
ture. The  Eugenist  is  therefore  deeply  concerned 
with  her  education,  her  psychology,  the  conditions 
which  permit  her  to  exercise  her  great  natural  func- 
tion of  choosing  the  fathers  of  the  future,  the  age  at 
which  she  should  marry,  and  the  compatibility  be- 
tween the  discharge  of  her  incomparable  function  of 
motherhood  and  the  lesser  functions  which  some 
women  now  assume.  Obstetrics,  and  the  modern 
physiology  and  psychology  of  sex  must  thus  be  har- 
nessed to  the  service  of  Eugenics,  and  I  hope  to  em- 
ploy them  for  the  elucidation,  in  a  future  volume,  of 
the  problems  of  woman  and  womanhood,  thus  con- 
ceived. 


PART  1 
THE  THEORY  OF  EUGENICS 


PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE 
CULTURE 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

"A  Little  Child  Shall  Lead  Them" 

THIS  book  will  be  mere  foolishness  to  those  who  repeat 
the  inhuman  and  animal  cry  that  we  have  to  take  the 
world  as  we  find  it  —  the  motto  of  the  impotent,  the 
forgotten,  the  cowardly  and  selfish,  or  the  merely  veg- 
etable, in  all  ages.  The  capital  fact  of  man,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  lower  animals  and  from  plants  is 
that  he  does  not  have  to  take  the  world  as  he  finds  it, 
that  he  does  not  merely  adapt  himself  to  his  environ- 
ment, but  that  he  himself  is  a  creator  of  his  world. 
If  our  ancestors  had  taken  and  left  the  world  as  they 
found  it,  we  should  be  little  more  than  erected  monkeys 
to-day.  For  none  who  accept  the  hopeless  dogma  is 
this  book  written.  They  are  welcome  to  take  and  leave 
the  world  as  they  find  it;  they  are  of  no  consequence 
to  the  world ;  and  their  existence  is  of  interest  only  in 
so  far  as  it  is  another  instance  of  that  amazing  waste- 

i 


2        PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

fulness  of  Nature  in  her  generations,  with  which  this 
book  will  be  so  largely  concerned. 

Beginning,  perhaps,  some  six  million  years  ago, 
the  fact  w;hich  we  call  human  life  has  persisted  hith- 
erto, and  shows  no  signs  of  exhaustion,  much  less  im- 
pending extinction,  being  indeed  more  abundant  nu- 
merically and  more  dominant  over  other  forms  of  life 
and  over  the  inanimate  world  to-day  than  ever  before. 
It  is  a  continuous  phenomenon.  The  life  of  every 
blood  corpuscle  or  skin  cell  of  every  human  being  now 
alive  is  absolutely  continuous  with  that  of  the  living 
cells  of  the  first  human  being  —  if  not,  indeed,  as  most 
biologists  appear  to  believe,  the  first  life  upon  the  earth. 
Yet  this  continuous  life  has  been  and  apparently  al- 
ways must  be  lived  in  a  tissue  of  amazing  discontinuity 
—  amazing,  at  least,  to  those  who  can  see  the  wonder- 
ful in  the  commonplace.  For  though  the  world-phe- 
nomenon which  we  call  Man  has  been  so  long  con- 
tinuous, and  is  at  this  moment  perhaps  as  much  modi- 
fied by  the  total  past  as  if  it  were  really  a  single 
undying  individual,  yet  only  a  few  decades  ago,  a  mere 
second  in  the  history  of  the  earth,  no  human  being 
now  alive  was  in  existence.  "  As  for  man,  his  days 
are  as  grass :  as  a  flower  of  the  field,  so  he  flourisheth. 
For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone;  and  the 
place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more."  Indeed,  not 
merely  are  we  individually  as  grass,  but  in  a  few  years 
the  hand  that  writes  these  words,  and  the  tissues  of 
eye  and  brain  whereby  they  are  perceived,  will  actually 
be  grass.  Here,  then,  is  the  colossal  paradox:  abso- 
lute and  literal  continuity  of  life,  every  cell  from  a  pre- 
ceding cell  throughout  the  ages  —  omnis  cellula  e  eel- 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

lula;  yet  three  times  in  every  century  the  living  and 
only  wealth  of  nations  is  reduced  to  dust,  and  is  raised 
up  again  from  helpless  infancy.  Where  else  is  such 
catastrophic  continuity  ? 

Each  individual  enters  the  world  in  a  fashion  the 
dramatic  and  sensational  character  of  which  can  be 
realized  by  none  who  have  not  witnessed  it;  and  in  a 
few  years  the  individual  dies,  scarcely  less  dramatically 
as  a  rule,  and  sometimes  more  so.  This  continuous 
and  apparently  invincible  thing,  human  life,  which  be- 
gan so  humbly  and  to  the  sound  of  no  trumpets,  in 
Southern  Asia  or  the  neighborhood  of  the  Caspian 
Sea,  but  which  has  never  looked  back  since  its  birth, 
and  is  now  the  dominant  fact  of  what  might  well  be 
an  astonished  earth,  depends  in  every  age  and  from 
moment  to  moment  upon  here  a  baby,  there  a  baby 
and  there  yet  another ;  these  curious  little  objects  being 
of  all  living  things,  animal  or  vegetable,  young  or  old, 
large  or  small,  the  most  utterly  helpless  and  incom- 
petent, incapable  even  of  finding  for  themselves  the 
breasts  that  were  made  for  them.  If  but  one  of  all 
the  "  hungry  generations  "  that  have  preceded  us  had 
failed  to  secure  the  care  and  love  of  its  predecessor, 
the  curtain  would  have  come  down  and  a  not  unprom- 
ising though  hitherto  sufficiently  grotesque  drama 
would  have  been  ended  for  ever. 

This  discontinuity  it  is  which  persuades  many  of  us 
to  conceive  human  life  to-be  not  so  much  a  mighty  maze 
without  a  plan,  as  a  mere  stringing  of  beads  on  an  end- 
less cord  of  which  one  end  arose  in  Mother  Earth, 
whilst  the  other  may  come  at  any  time  —  but  goes 
nowhere.  The  beads,  which  we  call  generations,  vary 


4        PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

in  size  and  color,  no  doubt,  but  on  no  system ;  each  one 
makes  a  fresh  start;  the  average  difference  between 
them  is  merely  one  of  position ;  and  the  result  is  merely 
to  make  the  string  longer.  Or  the  generations  might 
be  conceived  as  the  links  of  an  indeterminate  chain, 
necessarily  held  to  each  other;  but  suggesting  not  at 
all  the  idea  of  a  living  process  such  that  its  every  step 
is  fraught  with  eternal  consequence.  In  a  word,  we 
incline  to  think  that  History  merely  goes  on  repeating 
itself,  and  we  have  to  learn  that  History  never  repeats 
itself.  Every  generation  is  epoch-making. 

It  is  thus  to  the  conception  of  parenthood  as  the  vital 
and  organic  link  of  life  that  we  are  forced:  and  the 
whole  of  this  book  is  really  concerned  with  parent- 
hood. We  shall  see,  in  due  course,  that  no  generation, 
whether  of  men  or  animals  or  plants,  determines  or  pro- 
vides, as  a  whole,  the  future  of  the  race.  Only  a  per- 
centage, as  a  rule  a  very  small  percentage  indeed,  of 
any  species  reach  maturity,  and  fewer  still  become 
parents.  Amongst  ourselves,  one-tenth  of  any  gen- 
eration gives  birth  to  one-half  the  next.  These  it  is 
who,  in  the  long  run,  make  History:  a  Kant  or  a 
Spencer,  dying  childless,  may  leave  what  we  call  im- 
mortal works ;  but  unless  the  parents  of  each  new  gen- 
eration are  rightly  chosen  or  "  selected  " — to  use  the 
technical  word  —  a  new  generation  may  at  any  time 
arise  to  whom  the  greatest  achievements  of  the  past 
are  nothing.  The  newcomers  will  be  as  swine  to  these 
pearls,  the  immortality  of  which  is  always  conditional 
upon  the  capacity  of  those  who  come  after  to  appre- 
ciate them.  There  is  here  expressed  the  distinction 
between  two  kinds  of  progress:  the  traditional  prog- 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

ress  which  is  dependent  upon  transmitted  achieve- 
ment, but  in  its  turn  is  dependent  upon  racial  progress 
—  this  last  being  the  kind  of  progress  of  which  the 
history  of  pre-human  life  upon  the  planet  is  so  largely 
the  record  and  of  which  mankind  is  the  finest  fruit 
hitherto. 

It  is  possible  that  a  concrete  case,  common  enough, 
and  thus  the  more  significant,  may  appeal  to  the  reader, 
and  help  us  to  realize  afresh  the  conditions  under 
which  human  life  actually  persists. 

Forced  inside  a  motor-omnibus  one  evening,  for 
lack  of  room  outside,  I  found  myself  opposite  a  wom- 
an, poorly-clothed,  with  a  wedding  ring  upon  her  finger 
and  a  baby  in  her  arms.  The  child  was  covered  with 
a  black  shawl  and  its  face  could  not  be  seen.  It  was 
evidently  asleep.  It  should  have  been  in  its  cot  at  that 
hour.  The  mother's  face  roused  feelings  which  a  son- 
net of  Wordsworth's  might  have  expressed,  or  a  paint- 
ing by  some  artist  with  a  soul,  a  Rembrandt  or  a 
Watts,  such  as  we  may  look  for  in  vain  amongst  the 
be-lettered  to-day.  Here  was  the  spectacle  of  mother 
and  child,  which  all  the  great  historic  religions,  from 
Buddhism  to  Christianity,  have  rightly  worshiped; 
the  spectacle  which  more  nearly  symbolizes  the  sub- 
lime than  any  other  upon  which  the  eye  of  a  man,  him- 
self once  such  a  child  can  rest;  the  spectacle  which 
alone  epitomizes  the  life  of  mankind  and  the  unalter- 
able conditions  of  all  human  life  and  all  human  socie- 
ties, reminding  us  at  once  of  our  individual  mortality, 
and  the  immortality  of  our  race  — 

"  While  we,  the  brave,  the  mighty  and  the  wise, 
We  Men,  who  in  our  morn  of  youth  defied 


6        PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

The  Elements,  must  vanish; — be  it  so! 

Enough,  if  something  from  our  hands  have  power 
To  live,  and  act,  and  serve  the  future  hour:" 

—  the  spectacle  which  alone,  if  any  can,  many  reconcile 
us  to  death;  the  spectacle  of  that  which  alone  can  sanc- 
tify the  love  of  the  sexes ;  the  spectacle  of  motherhood 
in  being,  the  supreme  duty  and  supreme  privilege  of 
womanhood  — "  a  mother  is  a  mother  still,  the  holiest 
thing  alive." 

This  woman,  utterly  unconscious  of  the  dignity  of 
her  attitude  and  of  the  contrast  between  herself  and  the 
imitation  of  a  woman,  elegantly  clothed,  who  sat  next 
her,  giving  her  not  a  thought  nor  a  glance,  nor  yet 
room  for  the  elbow  bent  in  its  divine  office,  was  prob- 
ably some  thirty -two  or  three  years  old,  as  time  is  meas- 
ured by  the  revolutions  of  the  earth  around  the  sun. 
Measured  by  some  more  relevant  gauge,  she  was  evi- 
dently aged,  her  face  gray  and  drawn,  desperately  tired, 
yet  placid  —  not  with  due  exultation  but  with  the  calm 
of  one  who  has  no  hope.  She  was  too  weary  to  draw 
the  child  to  her  bosom,  and  her  arms  lay  upon  her 
knees ;  but  instead  she  bent  her  body  downwards  to  her 
baby.  She  looked  straight  out  in  front  of  her,  not  at 
me  nor  at  the  passing  phantasms  beyond,  but  at  noth- 
ing. The  eyes  were  open  but  they  were  too  tired  to 
see.  The  face  had  no  beauty  of  feature  nor  of  color 
nor  of  intelligence,  but  it  was  wholly  beautiful',  made  so 
by  motherhood;  and  I  think  she  must  have  held  some 
faith.  The  tint  of  her  skin  and  of  her  eyeballs  spoke 
of  the  impoverishment  of  her  blood,  her  need  of  sleep 
and  rest  and  ease  of  mind.  She  will  probably  be 
killed  by  consumption  within  five  years  and  will  cer- 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

tainly  never  hold  a  grand-child  in  her  arms.  The 
pathologist  may  lay  this  crime  at  the  door  of  the  tu- 
bercle bacillus;  but  a  prophet  would  lay  it  at  the 
reader's  door  and  mine. 

While  we  read  and  write,  play  at  politics  or  ping- 
pong,  this  woman  and  myriads  like  her  are  doing  the 
essential  work  of  the  world.  The  worm  waits  for  us 
as  well  as  for  her  and  them:  and  in  a  few  years  her 
children  and  theirs  will  be  Mankind.  We  need  a 
prophet  to  cry  aloud  and  spare  not;  to  tell  us  that  if 
this  is  the  fate  of  mothers  in  the  ranks  which  supply 
the  overwhelming  proportion  of  our  children,  our  na- 
tion may  number  Shakespeare  and  Newton  amongst 
the  glories  of  its  past,  and  the  lands  of  ancient  em- 
pires amongst  its  present  possessions,  but  it  can  have 
no  future;  that  if,  worshiping  what  it  is  pleased  to 
call  success,  it  has  no  tears  nor  even  eyes  for  such 
failures  as  these,  it  may  walk  in  the  ways  of  its  in- 
sensible heart  and  in  the  sight  of  its  blind  eyes;  yet  it 
is  walking  not  in  its  sleep  but  in  its  death,  is  already 
doomed  and  damned  almost  past  recall ;  and  that,  if  it 
is  to  be  saved,  there  will  avail  not  "  broadening  the 
basis  of  taxation,"  nor  teaching  in  churches  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Holy  Mother  and  Holy  Child,  whilst 
Motherhood  is  blasphemed  at  their  very  doors,  but  this 
and  this  only  —  the  establishment,  not  in  statutes  but 
in  the  consciences  of  men  and  women,  of  a  true  religion 
based  upon  these  perdurable  and  evident  dogmas  — 
that  all  human  life  is  holy,  all  mothers  and  all  children, 
that  history  is  made  in  the  nursery,  that  the  individual 
dies,  that  therefore  children  determine  the  destinies  of 
all  civilizations,  that  the  race  or  society  which  succeeds 


8        PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

with  its  mammoth  ships  and  its  manufactures  but  fails 
to  produce  men  and  women,  is  on  the  brink  of  irretriev- 
able doom;  that  the  body  of  man  is  an  animal,  en- 
dowed with  the  inherited  animal  instincts  necessary 
for  self-preservation  and  the  perpetuation  of  the  race, 
but  that,  if  the  possession  of  this  body  by  a  conscious 
spirit,  "looking  before  and  after,"  is  anything  more 
than  a  " sport"  of  the  evolutionary  forces,  it  demands 
that,  the  blind  animal  instincts  notwithstanding,  the 
desecration  of  motherhood,  the  perennial  slaughter 
and  injury  of  children,  the  casual  unconsidered  birth 
of  children  for  whom  there  is  no  room  or  light  or  air 
or  food,  and  of  children  whose  inheritance  condemns 
them  to  misery,  insanity  or  crime,  must  cease;  and 
that  the  recurrent  drama  of  human  love  and  struggle 
reaches  its  happy  ending  not  when  the  protagonists  are 
married,  but  when  they  join  hands  over  a  little  child 
that  promises  to  be  a  worthy  heir  of  all  the  ages.  This 
religion  must  teach  that  the  spectacle  of  a  prematurely 
aged  and  weary  and  hopeless  mother,  which  he  who 
runs  or  rides  may  see,  produced  by  our  rude  foreshad- 
owings  of  civilization,  is  an  affront  to  all  honest  and 
thoughtful  eyes :  that  where  there  are  no  mothers,  such 
as  mothers  should  be,  the  people  will  assuredly  perish, 
though  everything  they  touch  should  turn  to  gold, 
though  science  and  art  and  philosophy  should  flourish 
as  never  before.  I  believe  that  history,  rightly  read, 
teaches  these  tremendous  lessons. 

In  our  own  day  the  bounds  of  imagination  are  un- 
doubtedly widening.  Means  of  communication,  the 
press,  the  camera,  the  decadence  of  obsolete  dogmas, 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

making  room  for  the  simple  daily  truths  of  morality 
which  have  "  the  dignity  of  dateless  age  "  and  are  too 
hard  for  the  teeth  of  time  —  these  account  in  large 
measure  for  the  fact  that  the  happier  half  of  the  world 
is  at  last  beginning  to  realize  how  the  other  half  lives. 
There  is  perhaps  more  divine  discontent  with  things 
as  they  are  than  ever  heretofore ;  this  being  due,  as  has 
been  suggested,  perhaps  as  much  to  the  modern  aids  of 
imagination  as  to  any  inherent  increase  of  sympathy. 
Science,  too,  in  the  form  of  sociology  and  economics, 
adds  warrant  to  the  demand  for  some  radical  reform 
of  the  conditions  of  life.  It  teaches  that  all  forms  of 
life  are  interdependent;  that  society  is  thus  an  organ- 
ism in  more  than  merely  loose  analogy ;  that  the  classes 
pay  abundantly  for  the  state  of  the  masses,  whilst  medi- 
cine teaches  that  the  tuberculosis,  for  instance,  which 
slays  so  many  members  of  the  middle  and  upper 
classes,  is  bred  by  and  in  the  overcrowding  of  the 
lower  classes,  this  and  many  other  diseases  promising 
to  resist  all  measures  less  radical  than  the  abolition  of 
half  our  current  social  practice. 

Hence  it  is  that  we  hear  so  much  of  social  reform ; 
and  the  promises  of  representatives  of  many  political- 
isms  jostle  one  another  at  the  gates  of  our  ears.  The 
Anarchist  at  one  extreme,  and  the  Collectivist  at  the 
other,  with  the  Individualist  and  the  Socialist  some- 
where beween,  offer  their  panaceas.  To  me,  I  con- 
fess, they  seem  little  better  than  the  scholastic  meta- 
physicians of  old  days,  like  them,  mistaking  words 
for  things,  incapable  of  understanding  each  other, 
evading  precise  definition  and  using  terms  which  never 
mean  the  same  thing  twice  as  missiles  and  weapons  of 


io      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

abuse:   and,   above   all,   mistaking  means   for  ends. 

But  the  leading  error  common  to  them  all,  as  I  seem 
to  see  it,  is  their  conception  of  society  as  a  stable 
thing  —  a  piece  of  machinery  which  must  be  properly 
"  assembled,"  as  the  engineers  say ;  forgetful  of  the  ex- 
traordinary discontinuity  which  inheres  in  the  swift- 
approaching  death  of  all  its  parts,  and  their  replace- 
ment by  helpless  immaturity.  The  first  fact  of  society 
really  is  that  all  its  individuals  are  mortal.  This  we 
all  know,  but  I  question  whether  even  Herbert  Spencer 
fully  reckoned  with  it;  and  certainly  the  common  run 
of  social  speculators  have  not  begun  to  realize  what  it 
means.  Human  life  is  made  up  of  generations,  and 
the  key  to  all  progress  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  rela- 
tion between  one  generation  and  another.  Spencer 
records  the  case  of  an  Oxford  graduate,  desirous  to 
be  his  secretary,  who  did  not  know  that  the  population 
of  Great  Britain  is  increasing.  Here  is  a  capital  pres- 
ent fact  of  the  —  merely  quantitative  —  relation  be- 
tween successive  generations.  So  far  as  any  influence 
on  their  theory  or  practice  is  concerned,  it  is  still  un- 
known to  nearly  all  our  advisers.  Yet  this  fact  of  the 
ceaseless  multiplication  of  man,  which  has  distin- 
guished him  from  the  first,  and  is  absolutely  peculiar  to 
him  of  all  living  species,  animal  or  vegetable,  as  Sir 
E.  Ray  Lankester  has  lately  pointed  out  is  the  source  of 
the  major  facts  of  history  and  the  besetting  condition 
of  every  social  problem  that  can  be  named  at  this  hour. 

The  professional  and  dedicated  teachers  of  mo- 
rality seem  to  be  in  little  better  case.  They  believe 
in  babies,  perhaps,  as  the  prime  and  only  really  valid 
source  of  the  weal  and  wealth  and  strength  of  nations, 


INTRODUCTORY  n 

and  as  the  great  moralizers  and  humanizers  of  the 
generation  that  gives  them  birth.  They  are  beginning 
to  join  in  that  public  outcry  against  infant  mortality 
which  will  yet  abolish  this  abominable  stain  upon  our 
time.  But  they  are  lamentably  uninformed.  They  do 
not  know,  for  instance,  that  a  high  infant  mortality 
habitually  goes  with  a  high  birth-rate,  not  only  in  hu- 
man society  but  in  all  living  species ;  and  they  have  yet 
to  appreciate  the  proposition  which  I  have  so  often  ad- 
vanced and  which,  to  me  at  any  rate,  seems  absolutely 
self-evident,  that  until  we  have  learned  how  to  keep 
alive  all  the  healthy  babies  now  born  —  that  is  to  say 
not  less  than  ninety  per  cent,  of  all,  the  babies  in  the 
slums  included  —  it  is  monstrous  to  cry  for  more,  to 
be  similarly  slain.  These  bewailings  about  our  merci- 
fully falling  birth-rate,  uncoupled  with  any  attention 
to  the  slaughter  of  the  children  actually  born,  are  piti- 
able in  their  blindness  and  would  be  lamentable  if  they 
had  any  effect  —  of  which  there  is  fortunately  no  sign 
whatever,  but  indeed  the  contrary. 

Humanitarian  sentiment,  also,  is  terribly  misguided. 
"  Why  always  the  benefit  of  the  future,  has  the  present 
no  claim  upon  us  ?  "  I  have  been  asked.  Assuredly  all 
sentient  life,  and  therefore  pre-eminently  all  human 
life,  in  which  sentiency  is  so  incommensurably  intensi- 
fied by  self-consciousness,  the  power  of  "  looking  be- 
fore and  after,"  has  a  claim  upon  us :  but  the  question 
could  have  been  asked  by  no  one  whose  imagination 
had  been  worthily  employed.  Our  posterity  will  in 
due  course  be  as  actual  and  present  as  we,  their  deeds 
and  sufferings  and  hopes  as  actual  and  present  as  ours. 
They  outnumber  us  as  the  ocean  outweighs  a  raindrop ; 


12       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

to  avert  evil  from  one  of  them  is  as  much  as  to  relieve 
evil  in  one  of  us, —  how  much  more  to  prevent  the 
misery  of  five  in  the  next  generation,  fifty  in  the  next 
and  unnumbered  hosts  beyond  ?  To  serve  the  future  of 
the  race  is  not  to  benefit  a  fiction :  the  men  and  women 
of  a  hundred  and  a  thousand  years  hence  will  be  as  real 
as  we.  And  to  serve  the  future  is  to  put  out  our  talent 
at  compound  interest  a  thousand-fold  compounded. 
The  weak  imagination  would  rather  build  a  sanatorium 
for  consumptives  and  see  it  filled  with  grateful  patients. 
This  is  a  palpable,  sensible  good,  for  which  the  mean- 
est visual  faculty  suffices :  but  the  strong  imagina- 
tion would  rather  open  the  closed  windows  of  nur- 
series or  work  at  the  mechanical  problems  of  ven- 
tilation, aye,  or  even  at  the  structure  of  bacteriological 
microscope  —  finding  the  spectacle,  in  the  mind's  eye, 
of  healthy  men  and  women  fifty  years  hence  as  grate- 
ful and  as  real  a  reward  as  the  sight  of  a  sanatorium 
in  the  present.  The  pace  of  progress  will  be  incalcu- 
lably hastened  when  men,  whether  workers  or  be- 
queathers  or  administrators,  enlarge  their  imagina- 
tions so  as  to  perceive  that  the  future  will  be,  and  there- 
fore indeed  is,  as  real  as  the  present.1  I  appeal  to  the 
reason  of  the  kind-hearted  reader.  Would  you  rather 
make  one  man  or  child  happy  now,  or  two  or  a  thou- 
sand a  century  hence? 

It  is,  in  a  word,  the  idea  of  continuous  causation  or 
evolution  that  explains  the  remarkable  contrast  be- 
tween our  outlook  on  the  future  and  our  fathers'.  In 

1  A  tribute  is  due  to  the  anonymous  pioneer  of  sane  and  prov- 
ident philanthropy  who  lately  gave  £20,000  to  the  London  Hos- 
pital for  research.  Such  a  thing  is  a  commonplace  in  New 
York,  it  is  unprecedented  in  London. 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

older  —  that  is  to  say,  younger  —  days,  men's  interest 
in  posterity  was  most  naively  and  quaintly  selfish.  If 
they  raised  a  monument  or  did  any  piece  of  work  which 
obviously  would  endure  beyond  the  span  of  their  own 
lives,  their  chief  motive  seems  to  have  been  that  we 
should  think  well  of  them,  nor  forget  how  well  they 
thought  of  themselves.  They  were  not  concerned  with 
us  but  with  our  opinion  of  them.  They  were  anxious 
about  the  verdict  of  posterity;  and  the  verdict  is  that 
they  little  realized  their  responsibility  for  us,  or  be- 
trayed it  if  they  did.  There  is  also  the  frank  attitude 
of  Sir  Boyle  Roche's  famous  bull,  "  What  has  poster- 
ity done  for  us  ?  "  This  is  a  quite  familiar  and  conspic- 
uous sentiment  —  as  familiar  as  any  other  form  of  sel- 
fishness :  but  it  is  as  if  a  father  should  say,  "  What  have 
my  children  done  for  me  ?  "  and  is  open  to  the  same 
condemnation.  We  are  assuredly  responsible  for 
posterity  as  any  parent  for  any  child.  Before  the 
nineteenth  century  this  fact  could  be  realized  by  very 
few.  To-day,  when  the  truth  of  organic  evolution  is 
a  commonplace,  and  when  the  plasticity  of  the  forces 
of  evolution  is  slowly  becoming  realized,  we  must  face 
our  tremendous  responsibility  and  privilege  in  a  spirit 
worthy  of  those  to  whom  such  mighty  truths  have 
bten  revealed. 

Parenthood  and  birth  —  in  these  the  whole  is 
summed.  At  the  mercy  of  these  are  all  past  discovery, 
all  past  achievement  in  art  or  science,  in  action  or  in 
thought.  The  human  species,  secure  though  it  be,  is 
only  a  race  after  all;  only  a  sequence  of  runners  who 
quasi  cursor  es,  vitai  lampada  tradunt  —  like  runners, 
hand  on  the  lamp  of  life,  as  Lucretius  said.  This  it  is 


14       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

which,  to  the  thoughtful  observer,  makes  each  birth 
such  an  overwhelming  event.  It  is  a  great  event  for 
the  mother  and  the  father,  but  how  much  greater  if  its 
consequences  be  only  half  realized.  Education  in  its 
full  sense,  "  the  provision  of  an  environment,"  as  I 
would  define  it,  is  a  mighty  and  necessary  force,  for 
nothing  but  potentiality  is  given  at  birth :  but  no  edu- 
cation, no  influence  of  traditional  progress,  can  avail, 
unless  the  potentialities  which  these  must  unfold  are 
worthy.  The  baby  comes  tumbling  headlong  into  the 
world.  The  fate  of  all  the  to-morrows  depends  upon 
it.  Hitherto  its  happenings  has  depended  upon  fac- 
tors animal  and  casual  enough,  utterly  improvident, 
concerned  but  rarely  with  this  tremendous  consequence. 
Fate  may  be  mistress,  but  she  works  only  too  often  by 
Chance,  as  Goethe  remarked.  Fate  and  Chance  hitherto 
have  never  failed  to  keep  up  the  supply  which  the 
death  of  the  individual  makes  imperative :  and  forces 
have  been  at  work  determining  for  progress,  to  some 
extent,  but  most  imperfectly,  the  parentage  of  these 
headlong  babies.  Yet  the  human  intelligence  cannot 
remain  satisfied  with  their  working  —  and  much  less  so 
when  it  realizes  how  they  can  be  controlled,  how  ef- 
fectively, and  to  what  high  ends.  The  physician  may 
and  must  concern  himself,  on  these  occasions,  with  the 
immediate  needs  of  the  mother  and  the  child,  and  when 
these  are  satisfied  he  may  feel  that  his  duty  has  been 
done;  but,  as  he  journeys  homewards,  he  must  surely 
reflect  —  that  this  astonishing  thing,  then,  has  hap- 
pened again,  as  indeed  it  has  happened  many  times 
this  very  day;  that  whilst  this  baby  is  to  become  an 
individual  man  or  woman,  an  end  in  himself  or  her- 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

self,  in  its  young  loins  and  in  those  of  its  like  are  the 
hosts  of  all  the  unborn  who  are  yet  to  be.  If,  then, 
these  babies  differ  widely  from  each  other,  as  they  do ; 
if  these  differences  are,  on  the  whole,  capable  of  predic- 
tion in  terms  of  heredity;  if  the  future  state  of  man- 
kind is  involved  in  these  differences,  which  will  in  their 
turn  be  transmitted  to  the  children  of  such  as  them- 
selves become  parents;  and  if  this  business  of  parent- 
hood will  be  confined  to  only  a  small  proportion  of 
these  babies,  of  whom  one-half  never  reach  pu- 
berty. If  these  things  be  so,  as  they  are,  cannot 
these  babies  be  chosen  in  anticipation,  there  being  thus 
effected  an  enormous  vital  economy,  Nature  being 
commanded  to  the  highest  ends  by  the  only  method, 
which  is  to  obey  her  as  Bacon  said;  and  the  human 
intelligence  thus  making  its  supreme  achievement  — 
the  ethical  direction  and  vast  acceleration  of  racial 
progress?  What  man  can  do  for  animals  and  plants, 
can  he  not  do  for  himself?  Give  imagination  its  fleet- 
est and  strongest  wing,  it  can  never  conceive  a  task  so 
worth  the  doing. 

This,  and  this  alone,  is  what  requires  to  be  brought 
home  to  the  general  reader  and  the  reformer  alike. 
Says  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells :  "  It  seemed  to  me  then  that  to 
prevent  the  multiplication  of  people  below  a  certain 
standard,  and  to  encourage  the  multiplication  of  ex- 
ceptionally superior  people,  was  the  only  real  and  per- 
manent way  of  mending  the  ills  of  the  world.  I  think 
that  still."  And  then,  in  a  few  sketchy  pages,  Mr. 
Wells  discredits,  as  with  one  glance  of  great  eyes,  the 
very  proposal  which  he  thinks  to  be  the  only  real  and 
permanent  way  of  mending  the  ills  of  the  world.  Not 


16       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

one  man  in  thousands  has  got  so  far  as  to  hold  this 
opinion ;  and  it  is  the  more  lamentable  that  Mr.  Wells, 
having  reached  it,  should  hold  it  in  the  loose,  formal, 
and  inoperative  fashion  in  which  the  man  in  the  street 
or  the  woman  in  the  pew  holds  the  dogmas  of  ortho- 
dox theology.  We  need  to  educate  public  opinion  — 
that  "  chaos  of  prejudices  " —  up  to  Mr.  Wells'  stand- 
ard, and  then  we  need  to  accomplish  the  much  harder 
task  of  converting  a  mere  intellectual  speculation  into 
a  living  belief. 

But  so  surely  as  this  belief  is  the  crowning  and 
practical  conclusion  to  which  all  the  teachings  of  mod- 
ern biology  converge,  comes  to  life  in  men's  minds,  so 
surely  the  difficulties  will  be  met,  not  only  on  paper  but 
also  in  practice.  "  Where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way." 
Meanwhile  men  are  content  to  work  at  the  imperma- 
nent, if  not  indeed  at  measures  which  directly  war 
against  the  selection  of  the  best  for  parenthood :  they 
do  not  realize  the  stern  necessity  of  obeying  Nature  in 
this  respect  —  for  it  is  Her  selection  of  parents  that 
alone  has  raised  us  from  the  beast  and  the  worm  — 
and  since  necessity  alone,  whether  inner  or  outer, 
whether  of  character  or  circumstance,  is  the  mother 
of  invention,  they  fail  to  find  the  methods  by  which 
our  ideal  can  be  carried  out.  There  is  nothing,  either 
in  the  character  of  the  individual  man  and  woman,  or 
in  the  structure  of  society,  that  makes  the  ideal  of 
race-culture  impossible  to-day:  nor  must  action  wait 
for  further  knowledge  of  heredity.  Little  though  we 
know  so  far,  we  have  abundance  of  assured  knowledge 
for  immediate  action  in  many  directions  —  knowledge 
which  is  agreed  upon  by  Lamarckians  and  neo- 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

Lamarckians,  Darwinians  and  Weismannians,  Men- 
delians  and  biometricians  alike.  All  of  these  agree, 
for  instance,  as  to  the  fact  that  the  insane  tendency  is 
transmissible  and  is  transmitted  by  heredity.  We 
need  only  public  opinion  to  say,  "  Then  most  surely 
those  who  have  such  a  tendency  must  forgo  parent- 
hood." 

For  it  is  public  opinion  that  governs  the  world.  If 
it  were,  as  it  will  be  one  day  —  which  may  these  pages 
hasten  —  an  elementary  and  radical  truth,  as  familiar 
and  as  cogent  to  all,  man  in  the  House  or  man  in  the 
public-house,  as  the  fact  of  the  earth's  gravitation  — 
that  racial  maintenance,  much  more  racial  progress,  de- 
pends absolutely  upon  the  selection  of  parents;  if  the 
establishment  of  this  selective  progress  in  the  best  "and 
wisest  manner  were  the  admitted  goal  of  all  legislation 
and  all  social  and  political  speculation  —  who  can  ques- 
tion that  the  thing  would  be  practicable  and  indeed 
easy?  Without  the  formation  of  public  opinion  this 
is  as  hopelessly  Utopian  and  inaccessible  an  ideal  as 
words  ever  framed ;  public  opinion  once  formed,  noth- 
ing could  be  more  palpably  feasible.  Hence  Mr. 
Galton's  wisdom  in  demanding  that  before  we  dictate 
courses  of  procedure,  and  even  before  we  can  expect 
profit  from  scientific  investigation,  whether  by  the 
biometric  method  of  which  he  is  the  founder,  or  by  any 
other,  public  opinion  must  be  formed;  that  the  idea  of 
eugenics  or  good-breeding  must  be  instilled  into  the 
conscience  of  civilization  like  a  new  religion  —  a  re- 
ligion of  the  most  lofty  and  austere,  because  the  most 
unselfish,  morality,  a  religion  which  sets  before  it  a 
sublime  ideal,  terrestrial  indeed  in  its  chosen  theater, 


1 8       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

but  celestial  in  its  theme,  human  in  its  means,  but  liter- 
ally superhuman  in  its  goal.  If  the  intrinsic  ennoble- 
ment of  mankind  does  not  answer  to  this  eulogy,  where 
is  the  ideal  that  does  ? 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   EXCHEQUER   OF   LIFE 

"This  last  lustrum  has  enabled  us  to  make  an  astounding 
discovery,  of  which  neither  Adam  Smith  nor  Cobden  nor  Mal- 
thus  dreamed  —  that  a  nation  is  composed  not  of  property  nor  of 
provinces,  but  of  men." — TILLE  (1904),  quoted  by  FOREL. 

THE  main  thesis  which  the  last  chapter  was  intended 
to  introduce  is,  in  the  words  of  Ruskin,  simply  this: 
"  There  is  no  wealth  but  life."  The  assumption 
throughout  this  book  is  that  Ruskin  is  the  real  founder 
of  political  economy,  he  first  of  moderns  having  seen 
this  supreme  truth. 

We  speak  of  a  nation's  possessions,  but  possessions 
imply  a  possessor  or  possessors.  Wealth,  as  Ruskin 
teaches  us,  is  "  the  possession  of  the  valuable  by  the 
valiant."  If  our  national  possessions  were  made  over 
to  a  race  of  monkeys,  "  they  being  inherently  and 
eternally  incapable  of  wealth,"  what  would  they  be 
worth  ?  Furthermore,  to  possess  and  be  possessed  by, 
are  totally  diverse  things.  Says  Ruskin,  "  Lately  in 
a  wreck  of  a  Californian  ship,  one  of  the  passengers 
fastened  a  belt  about  him  with  two  hundred  pounds 
of  gold  in  it,  with  which  he  was  found  afterwards  at 
the  bottom.  Now,  as  he  was  sinking  —  had  he  the 
gold  or  had  the  gold  him  ?  " 

VITAL  ECONOMICS. — We  have  already  alluded  to  the 
unique  property  of  mankind  in  virtue  of  which  the 

19 


20        PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

radical  character  of  the  essential  wealth,  which  is  life, 
has  only  too  commonly  been  forgotten.  In  the  case  of 
any  animal  or  vegetable  species  we  should  have  no 
difficulty,  if  asked  regarding  its  "  success "  and 
"prospects,"  in  directing  our  inquiry  to  essentials. 
We  should  examine  the  individuals  of  that  species, 
young  and  old,  its  death-rate  and  its  birth-rate,  and 
these  would  supply  us  with  the  answer.  In  the  case 
of  man  there  is  the  almost  incalculable  complication 
involved  in  the  fact  that  he  is  capable  of  making  ex- 
ternal acquirements, —  material  possessions  and  spirit- 
ual possessions  which,  so  long  as  he  remains  capable 
of  possessing  them,  are  of  real  value  and,  on  account 
of  what  they  mean  for  life,  are  a  true  though  secon- 
dary wealth.  Amongst  civilized  mankind,  therefore, 
the  essential  question  as  to  the  breed  of  men  and  wom- 
en is  obscured  by  the  secondary  question  as  to  their 
traditional  or  transmitted  possessions  or  external  ac- 
quirements. But  if  we  remember  the  case  of  the 
drowning  man  and  his  gold  we  shall  realize  that  funda- 
mentally, the  case  is  the  same  for  the  human  as  for 
any  other  species.  No  one  can  openly  question  this, 
but  not  one  publicist  or  politician  in  a  thousand  be- 
lieves it  in  any  living  sense.  The  true  function  of 
government,  said  Ruskin,  is  the  production  and  recog- 
nition of  human  worth.  This  has  only  to  be  said  to 
be  admitted;  it  is  one  of  the  thoughts  that  shine,  as 
Joubert  says.  No  one  denies  it  and  no  one  acts  up- 
on it. 

In  this  sense  such  a  phrase  as  the  National  Ex- 
chequer begins  to  take  on  a  new  meaning,  and  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  loses  every  whit  of  his  im- 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  21 

portance,  except  in  so  far  as  his  proceedings  tend  to- 
wards, or  away  from,  the  production  and  recognition 
of  human  worth.  He  plays  with  money,  whereas  the 
Chancellor  of  the  real  Exchequer  would  work  for  life. 

THE  FACTS  OF  CHILDHOOD  TO-DAY. — But  since  hu- 
man life  is  discontinuous,  since  three  times  in  a  cen- 
tury the  essential  wealth  of  nations  is  reduced  to  dust, 
and  raised  again  from  helpless  infancy,  our  urgent 
business  is  with  the  children  of  the  nation.  What, 
then,  in  general,  are  the  facts  of  the  National  Exche- 
quer thus  conceived? 

We  find  that,  so  far  as  ordinary  physical  health  is 
concerned,  the  majority  of  human  babies  —  including, 
for  instance,  so-called  Anglo-Saxon  babies  —  are 
physically  healthy,  at  birth.  On  the  other  hand,  a  cer- 
tain proportion  are  as  definitely  and  obviously  un- 
healthy at  the  very  start  as  the  more  fortunate  major- 
ity are  healthy.  If  certain  influences,  such  as  alcohol 
and  some  few  diseases,  have  been  in  operation,  the 
babies  may  be  already  doomed  — not  national  wealth, 
but  national  illth.  In  the  absence  of  these  pernicious 
factors,  there  is,  on  the  whole,  physical  fitness.  The 
ratio  is  perhaps  as  ninety  to  ten  per  cent. 

Here  then,  is,  on  the  whole,  a  ceaseless  supply  of 
essential  wealth;  physically,  at  any  rate,  of  good 
enough  quality.  As  every  one  knows,  or  should  know, 
the  greater  part  of  it  we  immediately  proceed  to  deface 
and  destroy.  Our  mouths  are  full  of  argument  con- 
cerning the  principles  of  what  we  are  pleased  to  con- 
ceive as  political  economy.  The  principles  of  vital 
economy  we  do  not  inquire  into  but  outrage  and  defy 
at  every  turn.  So  horribly  and  wastefully  are  we  mis- 


22       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

guided  that  in  point  of  fact  we  actually  destroy  alto- 
gether the  greater  number,  not  of  all  the  children 
merely,  but  even  of  the  fit  and  healthy  children;  and  it 
may  forcibly  be  argued  that,  before  any  one  proceeds 
to  attempt  any  choice  amongst  the  children,  as  to 
which  shall  in  their  turn  become  parents  and  which 
shall  not,  it  would  be  well,  apart  from  any  question  of 
discrimination  to  revise  radically  the  methods  which 
at  present  permit  this  wholesale  destruction.  Whilst 
we  kill  outright  by  hundreds  of  thousands  every  year, 
we  damage  for  life  far  more,  including  a  very  large 
proportion  of  those  who,  as  things  at  present  are,  will 
in  their  turn  become  the  parents  who  alone  are  the 
makers  of  the  real  wealth  of  nations.  If  this  destruc- 
tive process  had  the  effect  which  common  notions  of 
heredity  would  lead  us  to  expect,  then  most  certainly 
not  merely  would  Britain,  for  instance,  be  doomed,  but 
the  very  name  would  long  ago  have  become  "  one  with 
Nineveh  and  Tyre."  But  though  this  destructive 
process  (which  it  is  best  to  describe  as  resulting  in 
deterioration  rather  than  degeneration)  has  been  long 
continued,  and  though,  in  consequence  of  the  great 
economic  changes  of  last  century  and  the  rush  into  the 
cities  with  their  overcrowding,  it  is  perhaps  more  dis- 
astrous now  than  ever  before :  yet  it  remains  true  that 
most  of  the  babies  born  in  the  slums  are  splendid  little 
specimens  of  humanity — so  far  as  physique  is  con- 
cerned —  bearing  no  marks  of  degeneration  to  corre- 
spond with  the  deterioration  of  their  parents.  In  a 
word,  heredity  works  —  the  racial  poisons  apart,  as  we 
shall  see  —  so  that  each  generation  gets  a  fresh  start. 
//  there  be  no  process  of  selection,  each  new  gener- 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  23 

ation  begins  where  its  predecessor  began  and  is  as  a 
whole  neither  worse  nor  better,  whether  physically  or 
psychically. 

EUGENICS  AND  INFANT  MORTALITY. —  In  the  face  of 
the  foregoing,  which  merely  outlines  the  appalling  in- 
dictment that  ought  to  be  framed  against  civilization 
for  its  treatment  of  its  children,  it  is  evidently  incum- 
bent upon  us  to  answer  the  objector  who  should  say 
that  the  whole  purpose  and  argument  of  our  present 
inquiry  is  premature,  and  that  surely  our  first  business 
should  be  not  to  propose  any  novel  and  revolutionary 
doctrine  as  to  the  choice  of  parents  and  of  children, 
but  rather  to  stop  this  child  slaughter  and  child  dam- 
age —  in  other  words,  that  we  should  devote  ourselves 
rather,  not  to  providing  children  with  a  good  heredity, 
but  to  providing  them  with  a  good  environment,  it  be- 
ing only  too  demonstrable  that  the  environment  we  at 
present  provide  for  the  great  majority  of  them  is 
deadly  and  abominable  in  the  extreme.  This  argu- 
ment is  all  the  stronger  because  most  of  the  children 
are  admittedly  fit  physically  at  birth.  It  would  seem 
as  if  there  were  little  to  complain  of  in  their  heredity, 
whilst  there  is  certainly  almost  everything  to  com- 
plain of  in  their  environment. 

If  this  objection  is  to  be  met  at  all,  we  must  be  most 
careful  and  serious  in  our  going.  Whatever  conclu- 
sions we  come  to  we  must  at  any  rate  be  sure  that  we 
do  not  impugn  or  deny  the  instant,  immediate  and 
constant  law  of  love  which  declares  that  there  can  be 
no  adequate  ideal  short  of  doing  our  best  for  all  chil- 
dren, once  they  are  born  —  nay,  more,  from  the  very 
moment,  months  before,  at  which  their  individual  his- 


24      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

tory  starts.  Whoso  suggests  that,  as  a  present  and 
immediate  policy,  it  is  not  right  to  care  for  all  children, 
healthy  or  diseased,  welcome  or  unwelcome,  nursed  in 
Park  Lane  or  in  the  slums,  may  have  plausible  and 
even  so-called  eugenic  arguments  on  his  side,  but  his 
proposal  is  essentially  immoral  and  therefore  essen- 
tially false.  For  all  children  actually  in  being  - 
whether  they  await  or  have  passed  the  particular 
moment  of  birth  —  it  is  our  duty,  ideal  and  real, 
to  do  our  utmost.  The  believer  in  the  principle  of 
race-culture  or  eugenics  —  whom  I  shall  hereafter, 
as  for  some  years  past,  call  the  eugenist  —  may  be- 
lieve that  it  would  have  been  better  had  some  of  these 
children  never  been  born;  he  may  believe  that,  in 
the  present  unorganized  state  of  society,  in  the  present 
dethroned  state  of  motherhood,  it  were  vastly  better 
had  many  even  of  the  healthy  majority  never  been 
born.  He  may  be  convinced  that,  since  so  many  of 
them  will  certainly  die,  failing  our  feeble  efforts  to 
save  childhood,  their  birth  is  a  misfortune :  but  on  no 
terms  and  for  no  objects  whatever  does,  or  can,  the 
eugenist  propose  that  any  of  these  children,  even 
though  from  the  moment  of  birth  they  be  riddled  with 
disease,  should  be  allowed  to  die.  Though  some  will 
say  that  the  keeping  alive  of  diseased  children,  or  even 
of  many  children  at  first  healthy,  is  a  disaster,  I  main- 
tain that  no  such  question  of  choice,  selection  or  dis- 
crimination can  find  any  warrant  in  any  form  of  mor- 
ality —  eugenic  or  other  —  from  the  moment  at 
which  the  child  in  question  began  its  individual  exist- 
ence. Those  of  us  who  advocate  the  eugenic  idea 
must  be  perpetually  on  our  guard  against  the  insidious 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  25 

alliance  of  any  who,  agreeing  with  our  premises,  de- 
clare that  it  is  a  mistake,  for  instance,  to  prosecute  a 
j  campaign  against  infant  mortality.     I  myself  have  had 
ja  'share  —  by  a  continuous  propaganda  started  in  1902 
-in  making  this  last  a  publicly  recognized  question, 
i  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  done  my  best  to 
!  popularize  the  idea  of  eugenics.     Let  me  repeat  here 
;  what  I  have  already  said  elsewhere :  that  I  strenuously 
j  repudiate  any  suggestion  that  the  eugenic  end  is  legiti- 
mately or  effectively  to  be  served  by  permitting  the 
infant    mortality    to     continue.     The    distinguished 
Egyptologist,  Professor  Flinders  Petrie,  in  his  recent 
book  Janus  in  Modern  Life,  describes  as  follows  the 
results  of  the  present  crusade  against  infant  mortality, 
j  as  he   conceives  them :  — "  We  must   agree   that   it 
would  be  of  the  lower  or  lowest  type  of  careless,  thrift- 
less, dirty,  and  incapable  families  that  the  increase  [of 
surviving  children]  would  be  obtained.     Is  it  worth 
while  to  dilute  our  increase  of  population  by  ten  per 
cent,  more  of  the  most  inferior  kind?     Will  England 
be  stronger  for  having  one- thirtieth  more,  and  that  of 
the  worst  stock,  added  to  the  population  every  year? 
This  movement  is  doing  away  with  one  of  the  few  re- 
mains of  natural  weeding  out  of  the  unfit  that  our  civ- 
ilization has  left  to  us.     And  it  will  certainly  cause 
more  misery  than  happiness  in  the  course  of  a  century." 
Here,  plainly,  is  a  serious  argument.     We  are  bound 
to  sympathize  with  its  underlying  assumption,  viz., 
that  not  all  babies  are  such  as  we  can  desire  to  carry 
on  the  race.     Still  more  must  we  sympathize  with  any 
author  whatever  who  has  the  imagination  and  foresight 
enough  to  write  anywhere,  on  any  subject,  wrongly  or 


26       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

rightly,  such  a  sentence  as  "  and  it  will  certainly  cause ; 
more  misery  than  happiness  in  the  course  of  a  century. " 
We  need  more  such  authors.  But  without  going  into;! 
the  whole  argument  here  —  as,  for  instance,  regarding  i 
the  singular  use  of  the  word  "  natural "  —  I  do  most 
entirely  deny  the  right  of  the  eugenic  idea  to  any  voice  [ 
or  place  as  to  the  fate  of  children  once  they  have  come 
into  being.  Another  writer,  arguing  on  the  same  lines, 
says  a  propos  of  the  abolition  of  infant  mortality: 
"  This  last  change  which,  as  the  Huddersfield  experi- 
ment shows,  is  easy  of  accomplishment,  is  likely  to  be 
completely  affected  in  the  next  few  years,  and  we  shall 
then  have  abolished  the  one  factor  which  in  any  im- 
portant degree  at  present  tends  to  redress  the  balance 
between  the  rates  of  reproduction  of  the  superior  and 
the  inferior  classes."  These  are  the  words  of  Dr%  W. 
McDougall,  the  distinguished  psychologist.  Dr.  Mc- 
Dougall  has  subsequently  shown  that  he  repudiates  the 
apparent  deduction  from  them,  and  entirely  approves 
of  the  present  campaign  of  mercy  to  childhood.  Never- 
theless, these  arguments,  plainly  derived  from  the 
principle  of  natural  selection,  do  express  a  most  im- 
portant truth  —  viz.,  that  indiscriminate  survival  must 
lead  to  racial  dacadence,  whether  in  man,  microbe  or 
moss.  I  submit  that  the  difficulty  can  be  solved  only 
by  the  eugenic  principle. 

The  fittest  must  become  parents,  and  the  unfit 1  must 
not ;  then  kill  the  unfit,  says  Nature.  And  this  indeed, 
in  all  living  species  other  than  man,  is  what  Nature 

1  The  word  is  used  in  the  ordinary  loose  sense,  to  which  there 
is  no  objection  provided  that  there  be  no  misunderstanding  of  its 
exact  scientific  meaning,  as  in  Spencer's  phrase  "  survival  of  the 
fittest  "—i.e.,  not  the  best,  but  the  best  adapted. 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  27 

jdoes  But  "  thou  shalt  not  kill,"  says  the  moral  law  — 
jnot  even  the  unfit.  As  the  foregoing  will  have  shown, 
Isome  thinkers  to-day  propose  to  avail  themselves  in 
jthis  dilemma  of  the  "  New  Decalogue  " :  — 

"  Thou  shalt  not  kill  but  need'st  not  strive 
Officiously  to  keep  alive." 

This  is  no  solution  of  the  problem.  There  is  only  one 
j  solution,  and  that  is  the  eugenic  solution.  Nature  can 
i  preserve  a  race  only  by  destroying  the  unfit.  We  who 
jare  intelligent  must  preserve  and  elevate  the  race  by 
i  preventing  the  unfit  from  ever  coming  into  existence  at 
all.  We  must  replace  Nature's  relative  death-rate  by 
| a  relative  birth-rate.  This  is  merciful  and  supremely 
moral;  it  means  vast  economy  in  life  and  money  and 
•time  and  suffering;  it  is  natural  at  bottom,  but  it  is 
'Nature  raised  to  her  highest  power  in  that  almost 
supra-natural  fact  —  the  moral  intelligence  of  man. 

THE  DILEMMA  DEFINED. —  The  moral  law,  and  our 
inatural  human  sympathy,  insist  that  we  should  seek  to 
'preserve  all  the  children  that  come  into  the  world,  to 
amplify  the  health  of  the  healthy,  and  to  neutralize,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  unfitness  of  the  unfit.  A  mother 
brings  her  malformed  baby  to  the  surgeon,  and  he  does 
his  best  to  patch  up  the  gaps  left  by  the  imperfect  pro- 
:esses  of  development.  Otherwise  the  baby  will  die. 
Who  dares  look  that  mother  in  the  face  and  say  "  Ah, 
but  it  is  better  for  the  race  that  your  child  should  die !  " 
Such  a  doctrine,  I  submit,  blasphemes  our  humanity; 
it  is  intolerable  to  any  decent  person  who  will  pause  to 
think  what  it  means:  and  yet,  in  so  saying,  we  seem  to 
defy  Nature  with  her  imperative  law  of  the  survival 


28       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

of  the  fittest  only.  Pre-eugenic  writers  on  evolution  state 
the  case  in  all  its  hardness.  Dr.  Archdall  Reid  says 
that  "  If  we  wish  to  improve  the  individual,  we  must  at- 
tend to  his  acquirements  by  providing  proper  shelter, 
food,  and  training."  Well,  we  do  wish  to  improve  the 
individual,  and  to  preserve  the  individual !  We  do  not 
wish  the  super-man  on  the  terms  of  Nietzsche  —  the 
super-man  obtained  at  the  cost  of  love  would  turn  out 
to  be  inferior  to  any  brute-beast,  an  intellectual  fiend. 
But,  Dr.  Reid  goes  on  to  say,  "  such  means  will  not 
effect  an  improvement  of  the  race.  ...  On  the  con- 
trary, they  will  cause  deterioration  *  by  an  increased 
survival  of  the  unfit."  The  provision  of  "proper 
shelter,  food  and  training"  will  cause  racial  deca- 
dence! Is  it  not  evident,  then,  that  such  provisions 
must  rather  be  styled  improper,  and  that  we  must  re- 
frain from  doing  anything  for  the  defects  and  needs  of 
the  individual,  lest  a  worse  thing  befall  the  race  ?  This 
is  an  outrageous  proposition,  yet  it  is  offered  us  as  a 
necessary  inference  from  the  principle  of  natural  se- 
lection or  the  survival  of  the  fittest  —  which  no  one 
now  dares  to  dispute. 

Herbert  Spencer,  to  whom  we  owe  the  phrase  "  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,"  expresses  this  critical  difficulty 
as  follows :  "  The  law  that  each  creature  shall  take  the 
benefits  and  the  evils  of  its  own  nature  has  been  the 
law  under  which  life  has  evolved  thus  far.  Any  ar- 
rangements which,  in  a  considerable  degree,  prevent 
superiority  from  profiting  by  the  rewards  of  superior- 
ity, or  shield  inferiority  from  the  evils  it  entails  —  any 

1 "  Degeneration,"   I  think,  is  the  best  word   for  the  raci 
"deterioration"  for  the  individual,  change. 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  29 

arrangements  which  tend  to  make  it  as  well  to  be  in- 
ferior as  to  be  superior,  are  arrangements  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  progress  of  organization,  and  the  reach- 
ing of  a  higher  life."  This  is  permanently  and  neces- 
sarily true,  and  in  our  care  for  childhood  we  have  to 
reckon  with  it.  Yet  even  Spencer  himself  did  not  pur- 
sue this  supremely  important  inquiry  to  what  I  shall 
in  a  moment  submit  to  be  its  logical  and  almost  in- 
credibly hopeful  conclusion. 

Huxley,  writing  his  well-known  Romanes  Lecture, 
"  Evolution  and  Ethics,"  at  a  time  when,  unfortun- 
ately, he  had  somewhat  parted  company  with  Spencer, 
and  was  too  ready  to  accept  any  argument  that  made 
against  Spencer's  political  views,  cuts  the  Gordian 
knot  in  an  astonishingly  unsatisfactory  fashion.  He 
declares  that  "  the  ethical  progress  of  society  depends, 
not  on  imitating  the  cosmic  process  [that  is,  the  se- 
lection of  the  fittest]  still  less  running  away  from  it, 
but  in  combating  it."  This  is  shallow  thinking  and 
very  poor  philosophy.  One  wonders  how  Huxley  can 
have  forgotten  the  great  dictum  of  Bacon  that  Nature 
can  be  commanded  only  by  obeying  her.  He  declares 
that  moral  evolution  is  the  direct  contradiction  and 
antithesis  of  the  process  of  organic  evolution  hitherto. 
He  says,  "  Social  progress  means  a  checking  of  the 
cosmic  process  at  every  step  and  the  substitution  for  it 
of  another,  which  may  be  called  the  ethical  process;" 
and  he  declares  it  to  be  a  fallacy  to  suppose  "  that  be- 
cause on  the  whole  animals  and  plants  have  advanced 
in  perfection  of  organization,  by  means  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  and  the  consequent  survival  of  the  fittest ; 
therefore  men  in  society,  men  as  ethical  beings,  must 


30       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

look  to  the  same  process  to  help  them  towards  per- 
fection." 

With  all  this  Huxley  offers  us  no  real  solution  what- 
ever, no  hint  that  he  has  realized  in  any  degree  what 
must  be  the  consequences  of  indiscriminate  survival. 
It  is  astonishing  how  personal  bias,  so  alien  to  the 
whole  character  of  the  man  as  a  rule,  blinded  him  to  a 
solution  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  stared  him  in  the 
face.  Assuredly  we  can  transmute  and  elevate  and 
raise  to  its  highest  power  what  he  calls  the  cosmic  proc- 
ess, and  can  reconcile  cosmic  with  ethical  evolution, 
by  extending  to  the  unfit  all  our  sympathy  but  forbid- 
ding them  parenthood.  I  deny  that  the  provision  of  a 
proper  environment  for  the  individual  entails  racial 
deterioration.  Cosmic  and  moral  evolution  are  com- 
patible if,  whilst  caring  for  each  individual,  whether 
maim,  halt,  blind,  or  insane,  and  whilst  admitting  the 
categorical  imperative  of  the  law  of  love  which  de- 
mands our  care  for  him,  we  continue  to  obey  the  indi- 
cation of  Nature,  which  forbids  such  an  individual  to 
perpetuate  his  infirmity.  Nature  has  no  choice ;  if  she 
is  to  avert  the  coming  of  the  unfit  race  she  must  sum- 
marily extinguish  its  potential  ancestor,  but  we  can  pro- 
hibit the  reproduction  of  his  infirmity  whilst  doing  all 
we  can  for  the  success  of  his  individual  life.  This  is 
the  ideal  course  indicated  and  approved  by  biology  and 
morality  alike. 

THE  EUGENIC  RECONCILIATION. —  I  submit,  then, 
that  there  is  no  inconsistency  in  fighting  simultaneously 
for  the  preservation  and  care  of  all  babies  and  all  chil- 
dren without  discrimination  of  any  kind  —  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  declaring  that,  if  the  degeneration  of 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  31 

the  race  is  to  be  averted,  still  more  if  racial,  which  is 
the  only  sure,  progress,  is  to  be  attained,  we  must  have 
the  worthy  and  only  the  worthy  to  be  the  parents  of 
the  future.  I  submit  further  that  only  the  eugenist 
can  maintain  his  position  in  this  matter  at  the  present 
day. 

On  this  one  hand  is  the  improvident  humanitarian 
with  his  feeling  heart,  he  who,  seeing  misery  and  dis- 
ease and  death,  whether  in  babyhood,  childhood,  or 
at  any  other  time  of  life,  seeks  to  improve  the  environ- 
ment and  so  relieve  these  evils.  Close  beside  this 
wholly  indiscriminate  humanitarianism  is  that  which 
declares  that  with  childhood  is  the  future  and  therefore 
devotes  its  energies  especially  to  the  young,  is  grateful 
for  every  baby  born,  whatever  its  state,  and  when 
adult  years  are  reached,  assumes  that  all  will  be  well 
for  the  future,  though  the  principle  of  natural  selection 
is  thus  made  of  none  effect. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  eugenists  stand  those  whom 
we  may  for  short  call  Nietzscheans.  They  see  one- 
half  of  the  truth  of  natural  selection;  they  see  that 
through  struggle  and  internecine  war,  species  have 
hitherto  maintained  themselves  or  ascended.  They 
declare  that  all  improvement  of  the  environment,  or  at 
any  rate  all  humanitarian  effort,  tends  to  abrogate  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  even,  as  is  only  too  often 
true,  to  select  unworth  and  let  worth  go  to  the  wall. 
This  school  then  declares  that  infant  mortality  is  a 
blessing  and  charity  an  unmitigated  curse.  In  short, 
that  we  must  go  back  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the 
order  of  the  beast. 

Between  these  two,  surely,  the  eugenist  stands,  de- 


32      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

claring  that  each  has  a  great  truth,  but  that  his  teach- 
ing, and  his  alone,  involves  their  co-ordination  and 
reconciliation.  He  agrees  with  the  humanitarian  that 
no  child  should  cry  or  starve  or  work  or  die  —  or  at 
any  rate  this  particular  eugenist  does  —  and  he  agrees 
with  the  Nietzschean  that  to  abrogate,  and  still  more, 
to  reverse,  the  principle  of  natural  selection,  is  to  set 
our  faces  for  the  goal  of  racial  death.  But  further, 
the  eugenist  declares  that  the  indiscriminate  human- 
itarian, blind  to  the  truth  which  the  Nietzscheans  see, 
would  heap  up,  if  permitted,  disaster  upon  disaster; 
whilst  he  repudiates  as  horrible  and  ghastly  the 
Nietzschean  doctrine  that  morality  must  go  by  the 
board  if  the  race  is  to  be  raised :  —  that  we  must  be 
damned  to  be  saved. 

Our  age  is  now  awakening,  at  last,  to  the  cry  of  the 
children.  The  tendency  of  legislation  and  opinion  in 
every  civilized  country  is  one  and  the  same.  For  this 
humanitarianism  let  only  him  who  thinks  of  any  child 
as  a  brat  refuse  to  give  thanks.  But  it  is  the  business 
of  all  who,  whilst  loving  children  and  still  in  love  with 
love,  are  yet  acquainted  with  the  principles  of  organic 
evolution  —  in  short,  the  business  of  all  humane  men 
of  science,  men  of  science  who  have  not  ceased  to  be 
human  —  whilst  aiding,  abetting  and  directing  this 
humanitarian  effort  by  every  means  in  their  power,  to 
teach  and  preach,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  that 
unless  meanwhile  we  make  terms  with  the  principle  of 
selection,  the  choice  of  worth  for  parents,  and  the  re- 
jection of  the  unworthy,  not  as  individuals  but  as  par- 
ents, we  shall  assuredly  breed  for  posterity,  whose 
lives  and  happiness  and  moral  welfare  are  in  our  hands, 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  33 

evils  that  can  adequately  neither  be  named  nor  num- 
bered. Already,  together  with  much  blessed  good,  this 
indiscriminate  humanitarianism  has  done  much  evil. 
Many  of  our  most  instant  and,  for  this  generation,  in- 
soluble problems  are  the  lamentable  fruit  of  this  inher- 
ently good  thing.  The  eugenist  declares  that  this 
fruit  is  not  necessary,  that  if  it  were  necessary  he  could 
see  no  way  out  of  our  morass  and  would  echo  the  half- 
wish  of  Huxley  for  some  kindly  comet  that  should  put 
a  term  to  human  history  altogether ;  and,  in  short,  that 
only  by  the  eugenic  means  can  the  humanitarian  end  be 
attained. 

During  the  last  year  or  two  of  the  campaign  against 
infant  mortality  many  things  have  become  clear,  and 
none  clearer  than  the  fundamental  compatibility  be- 
tween this  campaign  and  the  principles  of  eugenics.  As 
these  two  efforts  will  be  predominant  in  the  real  politics 
of  all  the  years  to  come,  a  few  more  words  must  here 
be  devoted  to  the  relation  between  them. 

Granted  that  the  highest  of  all  objects  is  the  making 
of  worthy  human  beings,  it  is  quite  evident  that  we 
must  attend  equally  to  the  two  factors  which  determine 
all  human  life  —  heredity  and  environment.  Eugenics 
stands  for  the  principle  of  heredity  —  the  principle  that 
the  right  children  shall  be  born.  The  campaign 
against  infant  mortality  stands  for  a  good  environ- 
ment l —  so  that  children,  when  born,  may  survive  and 
thrive.  Obviously  eugenics  would  be  of  no  use  if  the 
children  could  not  survive,  and  no  human  infant  can 
survive  unless  it  be  born  into  a  moral  environment: 

1  That  is  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  words,  not  in  the  more 
exact  sense  —  as  I  think  —  in  which  a  good  environment  would 
be  denned  as  that  which  selects  the  good  for  parenthood. 


34      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

no  motherhood,  no  man.  The  two  campaigns,  then, 
are  strictly  complementary.  We  must  endeavor  to  rid 
ourselves  of  the  popular  notion  that  the  whole  result 
of  the  campaign  against  infant  mortality  can  be  meas- 
ured by  the  number  of  babies  whose  death  is  prevented. 
The  infant  mortality  is  merely  an  index  of  a  wide- 
spread social  disease  —  an  index  and  an  extreme 
symptom.  But  for  every  baby  killed  many  are  dam- 
aged ;  and  to  remove  the  causes  of  infant  mortality  is 
to  remove  the  causes  which  at  present  effect  the  de- 
terioration of  millions  of  human  beings.  The  eugenic 
campaign,  then,  without  the  other  would  be  almost 
futi.le. 

THE  TIME  FOR  EUGENICS. —  On  our  principles  the 
eugenic  question  can  be  decently  raised  only  before  con- 
ception. The  unyoked  germ-cells  of  any  individual, 
though  alive,  are  not  entitled  to  claim  protection  from 
the  principle  that  life  is  sacred.  It  is  permitted  to  al- 
low them  to  die ;  but  from  the  moment  of  conception  a 
new  individual  has  been  formed  —  a  new  living  human 
individual,  even  though  it  only  consists  of  a  single  cell, 
product  of  the  union  of  the  parental  germ-cells:  and 
we  shall  not  be  safe  unless  we  regard  this  being  as 
sacred  and  its  destruction  —  except  in  order  to  save  the 
life  of  the  mother  —  as  murder,  even  at  this  as  at  any 
later  stage.  If  the  eugenist  should  raise  his  voice,  and 
say  that  this  individual  should  not  be  born,  he  must  be 
regarded  exactly  as  if  he  were  to  recommend  infant- 
icide or  the  lethal  chamber  for  unfit  individuals.  In 
such  a  case  he  would  have  entirely  mistaken  the  whole 
principle  of  (negative)  eugenics,  which  is  not  to  elevate 
the  race  by  the  destruction  of  the  unfit,  at  any  stage, 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  35 

ante-natal  or  post-natal,  but  to  do  so  by  prohibiting 
the  conception  of  the  unfit.  Directly  the  new  human 
individual  is  formed  the  eugenic  question  is  too  late  in 
that  case.  It  is  now  the  eugenist's  duty,  because  it  is 
every  one's  duty,  to  regard  the  new  individual,  whether 
born  or  yet  unborn,  as  an  end  in  himself  or  herself. 
But  when  the  question  arises  whether  that  individual 
is  to  become  a  parent,  then  the  eugenic  question  can 
and  must  be  raised. 

Circumstances  might  arise  in  which  "  case-law " 
might  be  applicable.  It  might  be  thought  better  to  de- 
stroy the  syphilitic  child  rather  than  allow  it  to  come 
into  the  world.  But  we  cannot  make  these  distinc- 
tions. The  question  is  simply  one  of  expediency,  and 
the  only  expedient  thing  is  that  there  shall  be  no 
paltering  with  the  principle  that  when  a  new  human 
life  is  conceived  our  duty  is  to  preserve  it,  whether  it 
were  conceived  only  twenty-four  hours  ago  or  whether 
it  be  a  decrepit  and  helpless  centenarian.  The  instant 
we  let  this  principle  go  we  are  proposing  to  revert  to 
nature's  method  of  keeping  up  the  level  of  a  race  by 
murder.  It  is  improper,  then,  for  any  one  on  eugenic 
grounds  to  protest  against  proposals  for  the  arrest  of 
infant  mortality.  He  should  have  spoken  sooner;  at 
this  stage  he  must  hold  his  peace. 

THE  TWO  CAMPAIGNS  COMPLEMENTARY. —  Yet  fur- 
ther :  not  only  is  it  evident  that  the  campaign  against 
infant  mortality  (which  is,  in  a  word,  the  campaign 
for  the  provision  of  a  proper  environment  for  the 
young)  is  obviously  necessary  for  the  fulfillment  of  the 
eugenic  ideal  —  since  what  would  be  the  good  of 
choosing  the  right  parents  if  their  children  are  then  to 


36       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

be  slain  ?  —  but  it  can  be  shown  conversely  that  the 
object  of  those  who  are  working  against  infant  mor- 
tality can  never  be  fully  attained  except  by  means  of 
eugenics.  Eugenics  apart,  we  can  and  shall  reduce  the 
infant  mortality  to  a  mere  fraction  of  what  it  is  at 
present,  by  preventing  the  destruction  of  that  great 
majority  of  babies  who  are  born  healthy.  Even,  how- 
ever, when  we  have  provided  an  ideal  environment  for 
every  baby  that  comes  into  the  world,  we  shall  not  have 
abolished  infant  mortality,  since  there  will  always  re- 
main a  proportion,  say  ten  per  cent.,  whom  not  even 
an  ideal  environment  can  save.  They  should  never 
have  been  conceived.  At  the  Infantile  Mortality  Con- 
ference held  in  London  in  1908,  this  was  clearly 
recognized  by  more  than  one  speaker.  The  maternal- 
ist  must  have  the  eugenist  to  help  him  if  his  ideal  is  to 
be  attained. 

Not  only  is  the  ideal  of  the  two  campaigns  one  and 
the  same ;  not  only  is  each  necessary  for  the  other,  but 
their  methods  are  the  same.  It  is  true  that  at  first 
this  was  not  evident,  since  when  we  began  to  fight 
against  infant  mortality  many  temporary  expedients  of 
no  eugenic  relevance  were  adopted,  such  as  the  creche 
and  the  infant  milk  depot.  But  in  the  interval  be- 
tween the  Conferences  of  1906  and  1908  many  things 
became  clear :  so  that,  whereas  the  papers  at  the  first 
Conference  were  only  accidentally  connected,  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  second  proceeded  upon  a  principle  —  the 
principle  of  the  supremacy  of  motherhood.  We  see 
now  that  the  one  fundamental  method  by  which  in- 
fantile mortality  may  be  checked  is  by  the  elevation  of 
motherhood.  In  the  words  of  our  President,  Mr.  John 


THE  EXCHEQUER  OF  LIFE  37 

Burns,  "  you  must  glorify,  dignify,  and  purify  mother- 
hood by  every  means  in  your  power."  Thus  the  first 
two  papers  read  at  the  first  morning's  meeting  of  the 
Conference  —  a  brief  paper  by  the  present  writer  on 
"The  Human  Mother/'  and  an  admirable  paper  by 
Miss  Alice  Ravenhill  on  "  Education  for  Motherhood  " 
—  might  equally  well  have  been  read  at  a  Eugenics 
Conference.  The  opponent  of  infant  mortality  and 
the  eugenist  appeal  to  the  same  principle  and  avow  the 
same  creed :  that  parenthood  is  sacred,  that  it  must  not 
be  casually  undertaken,  that  it  demands  the  most  as- 
siduous preparation  of  body  and  intellect  and  emotions. 
When,  at  last,  these  principles  are  believed  and  acted 
upon,  infant  mortality  will  be  a  thing  of  the  past  and 
national  eugenics  a  thing  of  the  present. 

It  is  essential  in  this  first  general  study  of  the  sub- 
ject to  state  the  true  nature  of  the  relation  between 
these  two  campaigns,  to  which  every  succeeding  year 
of  the  present  century  will  find  more  and  more  atten- 
tion devoted.  Between  them  they  succeed  in  beginning 
at  the  beginning,  and  it  would  be  a  disaster,  indeed,  if 
they  were  incompatible.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
complementary  and  mutually  indispensable.  As  the 
years  go  on  they  will  engage  between  them  the  sym- 
pathy and  the  assistance  of  all  serious  people.  In  the 
year  1907  infant  mortality  was  first  named  in  a 
speech  by  a  Prime  Minister,  and  in  the  same  year  it 
was  first  mentioned  in  the  Christmas-Day  sermon  at 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral;  in  that  year  also  Parliament 
passed  the  Early  Notification  of  Births  Act,  the  first 
substantial  legislative  provision  which  sets  our  feet  on 
the  road  towards  the  goal  of  a  true  national  estimate  of 


38      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 


the  value  of  parenthood.  We  are  about  to  discover 
that  the  true  politics  is  domestics,  since  there  is  no 
wealth  but  life  and  life  begins  at  home.  We  are  going 
to  have  the  right  kind  of  life  born,  and  we  are  going 
to  take  care  of  it  when  it  is  born.  We  shall  raise  a 
generation  which  looks  upon  the  ordinary  money- 
changing  politician  as  an  impudent  public  nuisance, 
and  the  brutal,  blood-stained  Imperialist,  shouting 
about  the  Empire  which  his  very  existence  almost  suf- 
fices to  condemn,  whilst  he  battens  on  the  cannibal 
sale  of  alcoholic  poison  to  babies  and  the  mothers  of 
future  babies,  as  the  very  type  of  those  traitors  —  they 
of  its  own  household  —  who  have  helped  to  destroy 
every  empire  in  history.  We  propose  to  rebuild  the 
living  foundations  of  empire.  To  this  end  we  shall 
preach  a  New  Imperialism,  warning  England  to  be- 
ware lest  her  veins  become  choked  with  yellow  dirt, 
and  demanding  that  over  all  her  legislative  chambers 
there  be  carved  the  more  than  golden  words,  "  There 
is  no  Wealth  but  Life." 


CHAPTER  HI 

NATURAL  SELECTION  AND  THE  LAW  OF  LOVE 

Truth  justifies  herself;  and  as  she  dwells 

With  hope,  who  would  not  follow  where  she  leads? 

WORDSWORTH. 

La  plus  haute  tache  de  1'action  morale  est  le  travail  pour  le 
bien  des  generations  futures. —  FOREL. 

BEFORE  looking  more  closely  than  we  are  commonly 
apt  to  do  at  the  meaning  of  the  phrases  "  natural  se- 
lection "  and  "  survival  of  the  fittest,"  let  us  exercise 
the  right  of  man  the  moral  being,  as  distinguished  from 
man  the  scientist  or  observer  of  Nature,  to  pass  ethical 
judgments  upon  the  facts  which  it  is  the  business  of 
all  the  sciences,  except  ethics  itself,  merely  to  record 
and  interpret  in  and  for  themselves.  We  are  beginning 
at  last,  half  a  century  after  the  publication  of  the  Origin 
of  Species  in  1859,  to  realize  the  power  of  the  law  of 
selection;  what  is  the  moral  judgment  which  is  to  be 
passed  upon  it?  In  a  passage  from  the  last  page  of 
Herbert  Spencer's  Autobiography,  we  find  words 
which  may  be  quoted  on  both  sides :  "  When  we  think 
of  the  myriads  of  years  of  the  Earth's  past,  during 
which  have  arisen  and  passed  away  low  forms  of  crea- 
tures, small  and  great,  which,  murdering  and  being 
murdered,  have  gradually  evolved,1  how  shall  we  an- 
swer the  question  —  To  what  end  ?  " 

xThe  Italics  are  mine. 

39 


40      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

"  Murdering  and  being  murdered  "  suggests  the  ad- 
verse, and  "  have  gradually  evolved,"  the  favorable, 
ethical  judgment. 

Many  thinkers,  finding  Nature  "  so  careless  of  the 
single  life,"  finding  the  murderous  struggle  for  exist- 
ence the  dominant  fact  of  the  history  of  the  living 
world,  return  an  adverse  verdict.  Amongst  them  are 
to  be  found  not  merely  those  who  are  inclined,  by  tem- 
perament or  imperfect  education,  to  rebellion  against 
any  conclusions  of  science,  but  also,  as  we  saw  in  the 
second  chapter,  such  a  great  biologist  as  Huxley.  In 
another  part  of  the  lecture  already  cited  he  says  that 
the  Stoics  failed  to  see 

".  .  .  that  cosmic  nature  is  no  school  of  virtue,  but  the 
headquarters  of  the  enemy  of  ethical  nature.  The  logic  of  facts 
was  necessary  to  convince  them  that  the  cosmos  works  through 
the  lower  nature  of  man,  not  for  righteousness,  but  against  it. 
.  .  .  The  practice  of  that  which  is  ethically  best  —  what 
we  call  goodness  or  virtue  —  involves  a  course  of  conduct  which, 
in  all  respects,  is  opposed  to  that  which  leads  to  success  in  the 
cosmic  struggle  for  existence." 

In  other  words,  honesty  is  the  worst  policy :  and  to 
worship  natural  selection  is  to  deify  the  devil. 

The  reader  will  realize  that,  if  we  are  to  succeed  in 
establishing  the  claim  of  natural  selection  to  be  the 
natural  model  upon  which  those  who  desire  the  prog- 
ress of  society  are  to  base  their  policy,  it  is  necessary 
to  controvert  the  doctrine  that  natural  selection  is  an 
anti-moral  process.  But  let  us  hear  the  other  side. 

The  directly  contrary  view,  then,  is  taken  that 
though,  truly  enough,  there  has  been  and  is  much 
"  murdering  and  being  murdered,"  yet  organisms 


NATURAL  SELECTION  41 

"  have  gradually  evolved "  towards  fitness  for  their 
surroundings  or  the  milieu  environnant  of  Lamarck, 
which  we  translate  environment ;  and  that  since  fitness 
or  adaptation  obviously  makes  for  happiness,  and  since 
the  moral  being  man  has  himself  been  thus  evolved, 
the  process  of  natural  selection,  "  murdering  and  being 
murdered  "  notwithstanding,  is  essentially  beneficent. 

The  controversy  is  embittered  and  complicated  by  the 
fact  that  ultimate  questions  of  religion  and  philosophy 
are  involved.  Is  the  Universe  moral,  as  Emerson  as- 
serted it  was,  or  is  it  immoral  ?  A  recent  opponent  of 
the  orthodox  creed  of  a  benevolent  Deity  teaches  that 
"  The  Lesson  of  Evolution  "  is  to  disprove  the  idea  of 
benevolence  behind  or  in  Nature :  "  The  story  of  life 
has  been  a  story  of  pain  and  cruelty  of  the  most 
ghastly  description."  The  agelong  fact  of  "  murder- 
ing and  being  murdered  "  is  the  weapon  with  which  he 
attacks  the  theist,  who,  per  contra,  points  to  the  be- 
neficent result,  the  exquisite  adaptaion  of  all  species 
to  the  circumstances  of  their  life,  and  the  evolution  of 
love  itself. 

We  may  remind  ourselves  of  those  great  lines  of  Mr. 
George  Meredith. 

".     .     .    sure  reward 
We  have  whom  knowledge  crowns; 
Who  see  in  mould  the  rose  unfold, 
The  soul  through  blood  and  tears" 

The  one  camp  points  to  the  "  blood  and  tears  "  and 
asks  for  a  verdict  accordingly.  The  other  points  to 
"  the  soul "  as  their  product,  and  asks  for  a  verdict 
accordingly.  But  suretn  moic  ^A  only  to  have  the 
case  fairly  stated,  in  ore  and  more  aPPr^-tbe  "blood 


42       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

and  tears  "  are  true  but  only  half  the  truth,  "  the  soul  " 
true  but  only  half  the  truth.  Natural  Selection  is  a 
colossal  paradox  —  the  doing  evil  that  good  may  come. 
The  evil  is  undoubtedly  done,  and  the  good  undoubt- 
edly comes.  Is  not  this  the  only  verdict  that  is  in  con- 
sonance with  all  the  facts?  Is  it  not  less  than  philo- 
sophic to  look  at  the  process  alone,  or  to  look  at  the 
result  alone?  Is  any  real  end  to  be  served  by  the  in- 
cessant cry  that  we  should  keep  our  eyes  fixed  on  the 
"  blood  and  tears  "  alone,  or  on  "  the  soul  "  alone?  Is 
not  the  poet  right  when  he  says  that  the  sure  reward 
of  knowledge  is  not  to  see  either  half  of  the  truth  as 
if  it  were  the  whole,  but  to  see  unfold  "  the  soul 
through  blood  and  tears  ?  " 

Any  attempt  to  cast  up  accounts  between  the  evil  of 
the  process  and  the  good  of  the  result  —  especially  any 
attempt  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  process  has 
yet  achieved  its  final  result  —  would  be  not  only  pre- 
mature in  the  eyes  of  those  who  can  look  forwards,  but 
would  be  irrelevant  to  our  present  inquiry.  I  certainly 
am  with  those  who  repudiate  as  misleading  Mill's  de- 
scription of  Nature  as  a  "  vast  slaughter-house  "  and 
will  declare  that,  apart  from  self-conscious  and  su- 
premely sensitive  man,  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  mis- 
ery and  to  minimize  the  joy  of  the  sub-human  world. 
But  our  business  here  is  with  the  process  and  its  results 
in  man  himself,  in  whom  alone  are  possible  the  heights 
of  ecstasy  and  the  depths  of  agony :  and  the  thesis  — 
the  sublime  thesis,  we  may  avouch  —  of  the  present 
discussion  is  that,  whatever  the  balance  between  the 
evil  of  the  processgff^^ere  ';  Selection  and  the  good 
of  its  resul^gn'J  being  muS.te,  yet  when  it  is  trans- 

»Jr-' 


NATURAL  SELECTION  43 

muted,  as  it  may  be,  by  the  moral  intelligence  of  man, 
according  to  the  principles  of  race-culture  or  eugenics, 
the  good  of  the  result  can  be  attained,  more  abun- 
dantly and  incomparably  more  rapidly,  than  ever  here- 
tofore, whilst  the  evil  of  the  process  can  be  abolished  al- 
together. True  or  false,  is  this  not  a  sublime  thesis  ? 

NATURE  MUST  BE  CRUEL  TO  BE  KIND. — If  organic 
fitness  or  adaptation  to  the  circumstances  of  life  is  to 
be  secured,  Nature  must  choose  for  future  parents,  out 
of  every  new  generation,  only  those  whose  inborn 
characters  make  for  this  adaptation,  and  who,  in  virtue 
of  the  fact  we  call  heredity,  will  tend  to  transmit  this 
fitness  to  their  offspring.  Now  it  is  often  convenient 
to  personify  Nature,  but  we  must  not  be  misled.  The 
process  is  really  an  automatic,  not  an  intelligently  di- 
rected one.  In  order  that  it  shall  be  possible,  certain 
conditions  must  obtain.  The  choice  or  selection  de- 
pends not  merely  upon  the  provision  of  a  variety  from 
which  to  choose  —  this  being  afforded  by  what  is 
called  variation,  which  is  the  correlative  of  heredity, 
both  being  obvious  facts  in  any  well-filled  nursery  — 
but  also  upon  the  production  of  more  young  creatures 
than  there  is  or  will  be  room  for.  (If  there  be  room 
for  all,  so  that  all  survive,  there  can  be  no  selection,  and 
instead  of  survival  of  the  fittest  there  will  be  indiscrim- 
inate survival.)  The  choice  is  effected  amongst  this 
superfluity  by  an  internecine  "  struggle  for  existence  " : 
hence  the  "  murdering  and  being  murdered,"  hence  the 
"blood  and  tears."  The  motor  force  of  the  whole 
process  may  be  symbolized  as  the  "  will  to  life,"  ever 
seeking  to  realize  itself  in  more  abundance  and  with 
more  success  —  with  more  and  more  approximation  to 


44      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

perfect  adaptation.  The  will  to  death  is  no  ingredient 
of  the  will  to  life.  Nature  is,  so  to  say,  by  no  means 
desirous  of  the  process  of  "  murdering  and  being  mur- 
dered " :  very  much  on  the  contrary.  It  is  life,  more 
life,  and  fitter  life,  that  is  her  desire :  the  "  murdering 
and  being  murdered,"  the  "  blood  and  tears  "  are  no 
part  of  her  aim.  But  they  are  inevitable,  though  lam- 
entable, if  her  aim  is  to  be  realized.  She  must  be  cruel 
to  be  kind.1 —  a  little  cruel  to  be  very  kind. 

It  is  imaginable,  though  no  more,  that  natural  selec- 
tion, in  certain  circumstances,  might  have  worked  oth- 
erwise: the  penalty  for  less  as  against  greater  fitness 
might  imaginably  have  been  not  death  but  merely  ster- 
ility—  the  denial  of  future  parenthood.  This  is  the 
ideal  of  race-culture.  Had  this  been  possible,  Nature 
could  have  effected  her  end,  which  is  fitter  and  fuller 
life,  without  having  incidentally  to  mete  out  premature 
death  to  such  an  overwhelming  majority  of  all  her 
creatures.  But,  actually,  this  was  not  possible :  and, 
unless  the  end  was  to  be  sacrificed,  Nature  was  com- 
pelled—  to  keep  up  the  figure  —  summarily  to  kill 

1  We  have  seen  that  Huxley's  assertion  of  the  fundamental  op- 
position between  moral  and  cosmic  evolution  is  unwarrantable. 
We  do  recognize,  however,  that  in  our  present  practice  this  op- 
position exists.  Our  ancestors  were  cruel  to  the  insane,  but  at 
least  they  prevented  them  from  multiplying.  We  are  blindly 
kind  to  them,  and  therefore  in  the  long  run  cruel.  But  the  di- 
lemma, kind  to  be  cruel,  or  cruel  to  be  kind,  is  not  necessary. 
It  is  quite  possible,  as  we  have  asserted,  to  be  at  once  kind  to 
the  individual  and  protective  of  the  future.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  also  possible  to  be  cruel  to  both.  The  London  County 
Council  offers  us,  at  the  time  of  writing,  a  demonstration  of  this. 
Sending  wretched  inebriates  on  the  round  of  police-court,  prison 
and  street,  with  intermittent  gestations,  rather  than  expend  a 
shilling  a  day,  per  individual,  in  decently  detaining  them,  it  serves 
at  least  the  philosophic  purpose  of  demonstrating  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  combine  the  maximum  of  brutality  to  the  individual  and 
the  present  with  the  maximum  of  injury  to  the  race  and  the  future. 


NATURAL  SELECTION  45 

right  and  left.  Permitted  to  reach  maturity,  the  unfit 
as  well  as  the  fit  would  multiply ;  and  since,  in  general, 
the  lower  the  form  of  life  the  greater  its  fertility,  the 
species  could  not  possibly  advance,  or  even  maintain 
itself  at  the  level  already  gained. 

To  drop  the  figure,  the  process  is  a  mechanical  and 
automatic  one,  and  its  appalling  wastefulness  and  in- 
disputable cruelty  are  inevitably  involved,  whilst  it  so 
remains. 

INTELLIGENCE  MAY  BE  KIND  TO  BE  KINDER. — But, 
—  and  here  is  the  great  event  —  this  mechanical,  auto- 
matic, non-intelligent  process  has  latterly  given  birth 
to  intelligence,  the  moral  intelligence  of  man :  and  the 
question  now  to  be  answered  is,  what  modification  can 
intelligence  effect  in  the  moral-immoral  process  that 
has  created  it?  Must  intelligence  abrogate  that  proc- 
ess altogether,  as  Huxley  declares,  on  the  grounds  of 
its  murderous  methods?  Must  intelligence  simply 
look  on,  recognize,  but  not  reconstruct  ?  Must  intelli- 
gence reverse  the  process  —  as  indeed  it  is  now  doing 
in  many  cases  —  so  that  in  the  new  environment  of 
which  itself  is  a  factor,  that  which  formerly  was  unfit- 
ness  shall  become  fitness,  and  vice  versa?  Or  is  it  con- 
ceivable that  intelligence  can  transmute  the  process,  so 
that,  whilst  hitherto  mechanical,  automatic,  and  there- 
fore inevitably  murderous,  it  shall  become  intelligent, 
pressing  towards  the  sublime  end,  and  reforming  the 
murderous  means? 

Hear  Mr.  Galton  himself  (Sociological  Papers, 
1905,  p.  52):- 

"  Purely  passive,  or  what  may  be  styled  mechanical  evolution, 
displays  the  awe-inspiring  spectacle  of  a  vast  eddy  of  organic 


46      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

turmoil  .  .  .  it  is  moulded  by  blind  and  wasteful  processes, 
namely,  by  an  extravagant  production  of  raw  material  and  the 
ruthless  rejection  of  all  that  is  superfluous,  through  the  blunder- 
ing steps  of  trial  and  error.  .  .  .  Evolution  is  in  any  case  a 
grand  phantasmagoria,  but  it  assumes  an  infinitely  more  interest- 
ing aspect  under  the  knowledge  that  the  intelligent  action  of  the 
human  will  is,  in  some  small  measure,  capable  of  directing  its 
course.  Man  has  the  power  of  doing  this  largely  so  far  as  the 
evolution  of  humanity  is  concerned;  he  has  already  affected  the 
quality  and  distribution  of  organic  life  so  widely  that  the  changes 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  merely  through  his  disforestings  and 
agriculture,  would  be  recognizable  from  a  distance  as  great  as 
that  of  the  moon." 

Hear  also  Sir  E.  Ray  Lankester,  in  the  Romanes 
Lecture  l  for  1905 :  "  Man  is  ...  a  product  of 
the  definite  and  orderly  evolution  which  is  universal,  a 
being  resulting  from  and  driven  by  the  one  great  nexus 
of  mechanism  which  we  call  Nature.  He  stands  alone, 
face  to  face  with  that  relentless  mechanism.  It  is  his 
destiny  to  understand  and  to  control  it." 

"  Nature's  Insurgent  Son,"  Professor  Lankester 
calls  man  in  this  lecture;  and  yet  again  there  recurs 
that  mighty  aphorism  of  Bacon,  which  might  well  be 
printed  on  every  page  of  these  chapters,  "  Nature  is 
to  be  commanded  only  by  obeying  her."  The  struggle 
for  existence  is  the  terrible  fact  of  Nature,  but  is  only 
a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  our  destiny  to  command  the 
end  whilst  humanising  the  means. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE. — The  ideal  eugen- 
ics or  race-culture  is  to  abolish  the  brutal  elements  of 
the  struggle  for  existence  whilst  gaining  its  great  end. 
The  nature  of  this  struggle  is  commonly  misappre- 
hended and,  as  I  cannot  improve  upon  the  words  of 

1  Reprinted  in  The  Kingdom  of  Man,  London 


NATURAL  SELECTION  47 

Professor  Lankester,  I  shall  freely  use  them  in  the  at- 
tempt to  show  what  it  really  is.     He  says :  — 

"The  world,  the  earth's  surface,  is  practically  full,  that  is  to 
say,  fully  occupied.  Only  one  pair  of  young  can  grow  up  to  take 
the  place  of  the  pair  —  male  and  female  —  which  have  launched 
a  dozen,  or  it  may  be  as  many  as  a  hundred  thousand,  young 
individuals  on  the  world.  .  .  .  The  *  struggle  for  existence ' 
of  Darwin  is  the  struggle  amongst  all  the  superabundant  young 
of  a  given  species,  in  a  given  area,  to  gain  the  necessary  food, 
to  escape  voracious  enemies,  and  gain  protection  from  excesses 
of  heat,  cold,  moisture,  and  dryness.  One  pair  in  the  new  gen- 
eration—  only  one  pair  —  survive  for  every  parental  pair.  Ani- 
mal population  does  not  increase:  'Increase  and  multiply*  has 
never  been  said  by  Nature  to  her  lower  creatures.  Locally,  and 
from  time  to  time,  owing  to  exceptional  changes,  a  species  may 
multiply  here  and  decrease  there;  but  it  is  important  to  realize 
that  the  '  struggle  for  existence '  in  Nature  —  that  is  to  say, 
among  the  animals  and  plants  of  this  earth  untouched  by  man  — 
is  a  desperate  one,  however  tranquil  and  peaceful  the  battlefield 
may  appear  to  us.  The  struggle  for  existence  takes  place,  not  as  a 
clever  French  writer  glibly  informs  his  readers,  between  different 
species,  but  between  individuals  of  the  same  species,  brothers  and 
sisters  and  cousins.  ...  In  Nature's  struggle  for  existence, 
death,  immediate  obliteration,  is  the  fate  of  the  vanquished, 
whilst  the  only  reward  to  the  victors  —  few,  very  few,  but  rare 
and  beautiful  in  the  fitness  which  has  carried  them  to  victory  — 
is  the  permission  to  reproduce  their  kind  —  to  carry  on  by  hered- 
ity to  another  generation  the  specific  qualities  by  which  they 
triumphed. 

"  It  is  not  generally  realized  how  severe  is  the  pressure  and 
competition  in  Nature  — not  between  different  species,  but  be- 
tween the  immature  population  of  one  and  the  same  species,  pre- 
cisely because  they  are  of  the  same  species  and  have  exactly  the 
same  needs.  ...  A  distinctive  quality  in  the  beauty  of  nat- 
ural productions  (in  which  man  delights)  is  due  to  the  unob- 
trusive yet  tremendous  slaughter  of  the  unfit  which  is  incessantly 
going  on,  and  the  absolute  restriction  of  the  privilege  of  parent- 
age to  the  happy  few  who  attain  to  the  standard  described  as 
'  the  fittest/  " 


48      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST. —  Now  let  us  look 
closely  at  this  most  famous  of  all  Spencer's  phrases, 
"  the  survival  of  the  fittest,"  and  try  to  understand  its 
full  and  exact  meaning.  There  is  no  phrase  in  any 
language  so  frequently  misinterpreted.  Even  a  writer 
who  should  know  better  makes  this  mistake.  Mr.  H. 
G.  Wells  speaks  1  of  "  that  same  lack  of  a  fine  appreci- 
ation of  facts  that  enabled  Herbert  Spencer  to  coin 
those  two  most  unfortunate  terms  Evolution  and  the 
Survival  of  the  Fittest.  The  implication  is  that  the  best 
reproduces  and  survives.  Now  really  it  is  the  better 
that  survives  and  not  the  best."  What  the  correction 
is  supposed  to  signify  I  do  not  know,  but  the  whole 
passage  is  nonsense.  The  implication  is  neither  that 
the  best  nor  the  better  survive,  but  the  fittest  —  or  if 
Mr.  Wells  prefers,  for  it  matters  not  one  whit  —  the 
fitter.  This  lack  of  fine  appreciation  of  words  is  not, 
unfortunately,  peculiar  to  Mr.  Wells.  There  is  no 
word  in  the  language  that  more  exactly  expresses  the 
fact  than  the  word  fittest :  as  Darwin  recognized  when 
he  promptly  incorporated  Spencer's  phrase  in  the  sec- 
ond edition  of  the  Origin  of  Species  as  the  best  inter- 
pretation of  his  own  phrase  "  Natural  Selection  "  2 
Fitness  is  the  capacity  to  fit :  a  thing  that  is  fit  is  a  thing 
that  fits.  A  living  creature  survives  in  proportion  as 
it  fits  its  environment  —  the  physical  environment  in 
the  case  of  vegetables  and  the  lower  animals,  the  physi- 
cal, social,  intellectual  and  moral  environment  in  the 

1  Sociological  Papers,  1905,  p.  59. 

2  Whilst  allowing  due  weight  to  Mr.  Wells'  opinion,  we  may 
also  note  that  Charles  Darwin,  who,  referring  to  his  own  phrase, 
'  natural  selection/  says,  "  But  the  expression  often  used  by  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  of  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest  is  ,,nore  accurate." 
(Origin  of  Species,  Popular  Edition,  page  76.) 


NATURAL  SELECTION  49 

case  of  man.  The  kind  of  glove  that  most  perfectly 
fits  the  hand  is  the  fittest  glove  and  will  survive  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  between  gloves.  If,  instead  of 
a  glove,  we  take  a  living  creature,  say  a  microbe,  the 
kind  of  microbe  that  best  fits  into  the  environment 
provided  by,  say,  human  blood,  is  the  fittest  and  will 
survive  and  be  the  cause  of  our  commonest  disease. 
Thus  the  tubercle  bacillus  is  at  once  the  fittest  microbe 
and,  not  the  best,  but  the  worst.  Among  ourselves, 
the  newspaper  devoted  to  yesterday's  murder  is  the 
fittest  and  survives,  ousting  the  newspaper  which  rec- 
kons with  the  crucifixion  or  the  murder  of  Socrates 
or  Bruno.  In  a  society  of  blackguardism,  the  biggest 
blackguard  is  the  fittest  man  and  will  survive:  he  is 
also  the  worst.  In  another  society  the  best  man  is 
the  fittest  and  survives.  The  capacity  to  fit  into  the 
environment  is  the  capacity  that  determines  survival : 
it  has  no  moral  connection  whatever.  If  Herbert 
Spencer  had  written  the  survival  of  the  better,  as  Mr. 
Wells  desires,  he  would  have  written  palpable  non- 
sense :  as  it  was  he  used  the  fittest  word  —  in  this  case 
also  the  best,  because  the  truest.  Referring  to  the 
queen-bee,  who  destroys  her  own  daughters,  Darwin 
says :  "  Undoubtedly  this  is  for  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity ;  the  maternal  love  or  maternal  hatred,  though 
the  latter  fortunately  is  most  rare,  is  all  the  same  to 
the  inexorable  principle  of  natural  selection." 

If  natural  selection  were  the  survival  of  the  better, 
as  Mr.  Wells  would  have  us  believe,  there  would  be 
nothing  for  eugenics  or  race-culture  to  do :  and  heaven 
would  long  ago  have  come  to  earth.  If  in  all  ages  the 
better  men  and  women  had  survived  and  become  par- 


50      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ents,  earth  would  long  ago  have  become  a  demi-para- 
dise  indeed,  there  would  have  been  no  arrests,  no  re- 
versals in  the  history  of  human  progress,  and  life 
would  be  already  what,  some  day,  it  will  be,  when 
there  is  achieved  the  eugenic  ideal  —  which  is  precisely 
that  the  best  or  better  members  of  our  race  shall  be  the 
selected  for  the  supreme  profession  of  parenthood.  In 
other  words,  the  eugenic  ideal,  the  ideal  of  race-culture, 
is  to  ensure  that  the  fittest  shall  be  the  best.  Always, 
everywhere,  without  a  solitary  exception,  human,  ani- 
mal or  vegetable,  the  fittest  have  ultimately  survived 
and  must  survive.  Once  realize  what  is  the  meaning 
of  the  word  fit  —  best  seen  in  the  verb  "  to  fit " —  and 
we  shall  see  that,  as  Herbert  Spencer  pointed  out  in 
his  overwhelming  reply  to  the  late  Lord  Salisbury's 
attack  on  evolution,  the  idea  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  is  a  necessity  of  thought.1 

But,  alas,  the  idea  of  the  survival  of  the  best  or  the 
better  is  not  a  necessity  of  thought!  The  fittest  mi- 
crobes are  the  worst  from  our  point  of  view,  because 
they  are  most  inimical  to  the  highest  forms  of  life; 
the  fittest  newspaper  may  be  the  worst,  because  it 
panders  to  the  worst  but  most  widespread  and  irre- 
sponsible elements  in  human  nature;  everything  and 
every  one  that  succeeds,  succeeds  because  it  or  he  fits 
the  conditions :  but  to  succeed  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
good.  Indeed  everything  that  exists  at  all,  living  or 
lifeless,  an  atom  or  an  animal,  a  molecule  or  a  moon, 
exists  because  it  can  exist,  because  it  fits  the  conditions 
of  existence :  there  is  no  moral  question  involved,  but 

1  Collected  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  493.     A  valuable  controversy  but 
poor  sport.     Thinker  versus  politician  is  scarcely  a  match. 


NATURAL  SELECTION  51 

only  a  mechanical  one.  The  business  of  eugenics  or 
race-culture  is  to  make  an  environment,  conditions  of 
law  and  public  opinion,  such  that  the  fittest  shall  be  the 
best  and  the  best  the  fittest  therein. 

If  memory  may  be  trusted,  the  primary  meaning 
of  the  word  fit  has  not  hitherto  been  called  in  by  any 
one  to  elucidate  the  meaning  of  Spencer's  phrase :  per- 
haps it  may  be  hoped  that  we  shall  at  last  begin  to 
understand  it,  if  we  remember  that  a  thing  is  fit  be- 
cause it  fits.  It  is  best  not  to  be  too  sanguine,  how- 
ever, and  therefore  we  may  attempt  to  illustrate  the 
case  from  another  aspect. 

SURVIVAL-VALUE. —  Every  living  thing  and  really 
every  character  or  feature  of  a  living  thing  that  sur- 
vives, survives  because  it  has  value  or  capacity  for 
life  —  which  may  be  called,  in  Professor  Lloyd  Mor- 
gan's phrase,  survival-value.  The  character  that 
gives  an  organism  survival-value  or  value  for  life, 
the  character  that  enables  it  to  fit  its  environment,  may 
be  of  any  order.  The  atom,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere, 
is  an  organism  writ  small.  The  kinds  of  atoms  that 
have  survived  in  the  agelong  struggle  for  existence 
between  atoms  are  those  that  have  survival-value  on 
account  of  their  internal  stability :  as  Empedocles  ar- 
gued ages  ago.  In  the  case  of  living  things,  which  in- 
dividually die,  it  is  evident  that  capacity  to  reproduce 
themselves  is  one  of  supreme  survival-value.  If  man- 
kind lost  this  capacity,  all  its  other  characters  of  sur- 
vival-value, such  as  intelligence,  would  obviously 
avail  it  nought.  Certain  valuable  members  of  society 
may  fall  short  in  this  cardinal  respect,  and  therefore 
become  extinct.  Indeed,  other  forms  of  survival- 


52      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

value,  as  we  shall  see,  seem  to  be  in  large  measure 
inimical  to  fertility :  and  this  is  perhaps  the  chief  ob- 
stacle to  eugenics.1 

Fertility  apart,  the  character  having  survival-value 
may  take  a  thousand  forms.  In  the  case  of  the  para- 
sitic microbe  it  is  an  evil  character,  the  power  to  pro- 
duce toxins  or  poisons.  In  the  case  of  the  tiger  it 
is  the  possession  of  large  and  powerful  bones  and 
claws  and  muscles  and  teeth.  In  the  case  of  the  ox 
it  is  a  complicated  and  efficient  digestive  apparatus, 
enabling  it  to  fit  into  a  food-environment  which  is  too 
innutritious  to  sustain  the  life  of  creatures  not  so  en- 
dowed. Nature  seeks  only  the  fittest ;  not  the  best  but 
the  best-adapted;  she  asks  no  moral  questions.  A 
Keats,  a  Spinoza  or  a  Schubert  must  go  under  if  his 
factors  of  survival-value  do  not  enable  him  to  resist 
those  of  the  tubercle  bacillus,  its  toxins  or  poisons. 
She  welcomes  the  parasitic  tapeworm,  all  hooks  and 
mouth  or  stomach,  because  these  give  it  survival-value ; 
and  so  on. 

The  business  of  eugenics  or  race-culture,  then,  is  to 
create  an  environment  such  that  those  characters  which 
we  desire  as  moral  and  intelligent  beings,  shall  be  en- 
dowed with  the  highest  possible  survival-value,  as 
against  those  which  ally  so  many  men  with  the  microbe 
and  the  tapeworm.  There  are  those  who  live  in  so- 
ciety to-day,  and  reproduce  their  like,  in  virtue  of  the 
poisons  they  produce,  in  virtue  of  their  tenacious  hooks 
and  voracious  stomachs.  If  society  be  organized  so 

1This  is  discussed  at  length  in  the  writer's  papers,  "The  Ob- 
stacles to  Eugenics,"  read  before  the  Sociological  Society,  March 
8,  1909. 


NATURAL  SELECTION  53 

that  these  are  factors  of  more  survival-value  than  the 
disinterested  search  for  truth,  or  mother-love,  or  the 
power  to  create  great  poetry  or  music  —  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  inevitable  and  universal  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  our  parasites  will  oust  our  poets  and  our 
poisoners  our  philosophers.  These  things  have  hap- 
pened and  may  happen  again  at  any  time.  It  does 
not  matter  that  the  good  thing,  in  virtue  of  sur- 
vival-value then  superior,  has  been  evolved.  Nature 
never  gives  a  final  verdict  in  favor  of  good  or  bad  but 
only  and  always  in  favor  of  the  fit.  Let  the  condi- 
tions change,  so  that  rapacity  fits  them  better  than 
righteousness,  or  —  as  in  a  completely  "  collectivist  " 
state  —  vegetableness  rather  than  virility,  and  the 
thing  we  call  high  will  go  under  before  the  thing  we 
call  low.  Nature  recognizes  neither  high  nor  low 
but  only  fitness  or  value  for  life  in  the  conditions  that 
actually  obtain.  These  laws  enthroned  and  dethroned 
the  civilizations  of  the  past :  they  have  enthroned  and 
may  dethrone  us.  But  this  end  is  not  inevitable,  since 
man  —  and  this  is  his  great  character  —  not  merely 
reacts  to  his  environment,  as  all  creatures  must,  but 
can  create  and  recreate  it.  The  business  of  eugenics  or 
race-culture  is  to  create  an  environment  such  that  the 
human  characters  of  which  the  human  spirit  approves 
shall  in  it  outweigh  those  of  which  we  disapprove. 
Make  it  fittest  to  be  best  and  the  best  will  win  —  not  be- 
cause it  is  the  best,  but  because  it  is  the  fittest:  had 
the  worst  been  the  fittest  it  would  have  won.  In  so- 
ciety to-day  both  forms  of  the  process  may  be  ob- 
served. The  balance  between  them  determines  its 


54      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

destiny.  It  is  the  business  of  eugenics  to  throw  the 
whole  weight  of  human  purpose  into  the  scale  of  the 
good. 

EVOLUTION  NOT  NECESSARILY  PROGRESS. —  No  ex- 
cessive space  has  been  devoted  to  this  distinction  be- 
tween the  fittest  and  the  best  and  to  the  real  meaning 
of  Spencer's  famous  phrase,  if  perchance  it  should 
avail  in  any  degree  to  dispel  one  of  the  commonest  of 
the  many  common  delusions  regarding  the  nature  of 
organic  evolution  and  its  outcome.  This  delusion  is 
that  progress  is  an  inevitable  law  of  nature.1  The 
great  process  of  history,  as  revealed  by  biology,  dis- 
plays as  its  supreme  fact  the  occurrence  of  progress. 
The  principles  of  evolution  teach  that  this  progress  - 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  evolution  of  man  —  is  a  product 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest;  whilst  we  are  also  re- 
minded that  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  a  necessary 
truth ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  progress  is  inevitable. 

In  the  first  place,  natural  selection  involves  selection. 
Where  all  the  young  members  of  a  new  generation  of 
any  species  survive,  and  parenthood  becomes  not  a 
privilege  but  a  common  and  universal  function,  plainly 
the  process  is  in  abeyance:  and,  in  the  second  place, 
since  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  the  survival  of  the  best 
adapted,  the  process  may  at  any  time  take  the  form  of 
retrogression  rather  than  that  of  progress.  The 
assumption  that,  because  progress  has  been  affected 
through  natural  selection,  we  need  do  no  more 
than  fold  our  hands  or  unfold  them  merely  to 
applaud,  involves  the  denial  of  one  of  the  most 

1  Spencer  introduced  the  non-moral  word  evolution  in  1857, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  moral  connotation  of  the  word  progress, 
which  he  had  formerly  employed. 


NATURAL  SELECTION  55 

familiar  facts  of  natural  history  —  the  fact  of  racial 
degeneration.  The  parasitic  microbes,  the  parasitic 
worms,  the  barnacles,  innumerable  living  creatures 
both  animal  and  vegetable  individuals  and  races  of 
mankind,  to-day  as  in  all  ages  — these  prove  only  too 
clearly  that  the  process  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
may  make  as  definitely  for  retrogression  in  one  case  as 
for  progress  in  another. 

By  all  means  let  us  infer  from  the  facts  of  organic 
evolution  the  conclusion  that  further  progress  must 
surely  be  possible,  so  much  progress  having  already 
been  achieved  as  is  represented  by  the  difference  be- 
tween inorganic  matter  or  the  amoeba  or  microbe  on  the 
one  hand,  and  man  on  the  other  hand.  But  let  us  most 
earnestly  beware  of  the  false  and  disastrous  optimism 
which  should  suppose  that  because  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  has  often,  and  indeed  most  often,  meant  the  sur- 
vival of  the  best,  it  means  always  that  and  nothing 
else.  On  the  contrary,  we  must  learn  that,  even  in 
natural  circumstances,  apart  from  any  interference  by 
man,  the  survival  of  the  fittest  often  means  racial  de- 
generation—  a  tapeworm  kept  in  spirits  should  stand 
upon  the  study  mantelpiece  of  all  who  think  with  Mr. 
Wells  that  the  survival  of  the  fittest  means  the  survival 
of  the  better ;  and  still  more  notably  we  must  learn  that 
the  interference  of  man  in  the  case  of  his  own  species, 
sometimes  of  evil  intent,  sometimes  for  the  highest 
ends,  with  the  process  of  natural  selection,  has  re- 
peatedly led,  and  is  now  in  large  part  leading,  to 
nothing  other  than  process  of  racial  degeneration  of 
which  the  tapeworm  and  the  barnacle  should  be  our 
perpetual  reminders.  The  case  becomes  serious 


56      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

enough  when  man  interferes  with  the  process  of  selec- 
tion merely  with  the  effect  of  suspending  it,  wholly  or 
in  part :  but  it  becomes  far  more  serious  when  his  inter- 
ference constitutes  a  reversal  of  the  process.  This 
most  supremely  disastrous  of  all  conceivable  conse- 
quences of  man's  intelligence  and  moral  sense  is  known 
as  reversed  selection,  and  must  be  carefully  studied 
hereafter.  Meanwhile,  we  must  devote  some  space  to 
a  most  '  important  consideration  —  namely,  that 
though  Nature  is  impartial  in  her  choice,  and  will,  for 
instance,  allow  the  poisons  of  a  microbe  such  as  the 
tubercle  bacillus  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  Spinoza  or  a 
Keats  or  a  Schubert,  yet,  on  the  whole,  the  survival- 
value  of  the  mental,  spiritual,  or  physical  in  all  its 
forms,  does  persistently  tend  to  outweigh  that  of  the 
physical  or  material  —  of  this  great  truth  the  evolu- 
tion and  dominance  of  man  himself  being  the  supreme 
example. 

The  very  fact  of  progress,  which  I  would  define  as 
the  emergence  and  increasing  dominance  of  mind, 
demonstrates  —  it  being  remembered  that  natural  se- 
lection has  no  moral  prejudices  —  that  even  in  a  world 
of  claws  and  toxins  the  psychical  must  have  possessed 
sufficient  survival-value  to  survive.  It  is  quite  evident 
that  even  the  lowliest  psychical  characters,  such  as 
sharpness  of  sensation,  discrimination,  and  memory, 
must  be  of  value  in  the  struggle  for  life.  More  and 
more  we  might  expect  to  find,  and  do  actually  find  in 
the  course  of  evolution,  that  creatures  live  by  their 
wits,  rather  than  by  force  of  bone  or  muscle.  The 
psychical  was  certainly  given  no  unfair  start  —  on  the 
contrary.  It  has  had  to  struggle  for  its  emergence; 


NATURAL  SELECTION  57 

it  has  emerged  only  where  there  has  been  struggle  and 
has  done  so  because  it  could  —  because  of  its  superior 
survival-value.  It  has  the  right  which  belongs  to 
might  —  in  the  world  of  life  there  is  no  other.1 

By  no  means  less  evident  is  the  inherently  superior 
survival-value  of  the  psychical,  if  we  turn  from  its 
aspects  of  sensation  and  intelligence  to  those  which  are 
all  summed  up  under  the  word  love.  Notwithstanding 
Nietzsche's  mad  misconception  of  the  Darwinian 
theory,  no  one  who  has  studied  the  facts  of  reproduc- 
tion and  its  conditions  in  the  world  of  life  can  question 
the  incalculable  survival-value  of  love  in  animal  his- 
tory. The  success  of  those  most  ancient  of  all  socie- 
ties, of  which  the  ant-heap  and  the  bee-hive  are  the 
types,  depends  absolutely  upon  the  self-sacrifice  of  the 
individual.  If  we  pass  upwards  from  the  insects  to 
the  lowest  vertebrates,  we  find  the  survival-value  of 
love  proved  by  the  comparison  between  various  species 
of  fish,  and  its  increasing  importance  may  be  traced  up- 
wards through  amphibia,  reptiles,  birds  and  mammals 
in  succession,  up  to  man.  Natural  selection  thus  ac- 
tually selects  morality.  Without  love  no  baby  could 
live  for  twenty-four  hours.  Every  human  being  that 
exists  or  ever  has  existed  or  ever  will  exist  is  a  prod- 

1  In  his  recent  work,  "  The  Origin  of  Vertebrates,"  Dr.  W. 
H.  Gaskell,  F.R.S.,  has  adduced  much  evidence  in  support  of  this 
thesis.  He  says,  "  The  law  of  progress  is  this :  The  race  is  not 
to  the  swift  nor  to  the  strong,  but  to  the  wise."  And  again; 
"  As  for  the  individual,  so  for  the  nation ;  as  for  the  nation,  so 
for  the  race ;  the  law  of  evolution  teaches  that  in  all  cases  brain- 
power wins.  Throughout,  from  the  dawn  of  animal  life  up  to 
the  present  day,  the  evidence  given  in  this  book  suggests  that  the 
same  law  has  always  held.  In  all  cases,  upward  progress  is  as- 
sociated with  the  development  of  the  central  nervous  system. 
The  law  for  the  whole  animal  kingdom  is  the  same  as  for  the 
individual.  "  Success  in  this  world  depends  upon  brains." 


58      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

uct  of  mother-love  or  foster-mother-love,  and  I  am 
well  entitled  to  say,  as  I  have  so  often  said,  no  morals, 
no  man.  The  creature  in  whom  organic  morality  is 
at  its  height  has  become  the  lord  of  the  earth  in  vir- 
tue of  that  morality  which  natural  selection  has  se- 
lected, not  from  any  moral  bias,  but  because  of  its 
superior  survival-value. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    SELECTION    OF    MIND 

"  Many  are  the  mighty  things,  but  none  is  mightier  than  man. 
.  .  .  He  conquers  by  his  devices  the  tenant  of  the  fields." — 
SOPHOCLES. 

"L'homme  n'est  gu'un  yoseau,  le  plus  faible  de  la  Nature; 
mais  c'est  an  yoseau  pensant." — PASCAL. 

"  The  soul  of  all  improvement  is  the  improvement  of  the  soul." 

—  BURCHELL, 

WHEREAS,  in  its  beginning,  mind,  or  the  psychical  in 
all  its  aspects,  was  merely  a  useful  property  of  body, 
all  organic  progress  may  be  conceived  in  terms  of  a 
change  in  this  original  relation  between  them.  In  man, 
the  mental  or  psychical  has  become  the  essential  thing, 
and  the  body  its  servant.  We  are  well  prepared,  then, 
to  accept  the  proposition  that  in  our  own  day  and  for 
our  own  species,  the  plane  upon  which  natural  selec- 
tion works  has  largely  been  transferred,  and,  indeed, 
if  any  further  progress  is  to  be  effected,  must  be  trans- 
ferred, from  the  bodily  or  physical  to  the  mental  or 
psychical.  A  certain  most  remarkable  fact  in  the 
anatomy  of  man  may  be  cited,  as  we  shall  see,  in  sup- 
port of  this  proposition. 

We  need  not  venture  upon  the  controversial  ground 
of  the  relation  or  ultimate  unity  of  mind  and  body ;  nor 
need  we  set  up  any  suggestion  of  antagonism  between 
them.  All,  however,  are  absolutely  agreed  that  the 

59 


60      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

psychical  in  all  its  forms,  whatever  it  really  be,  has  a 
consistent  relation  of  the  most  intimate  kind  with  that 
part  of  the  body  which  we  call  the  nervous  system. 
For  our  present  purposes  the  nature  of  this  relation 
matters  nothing  at  all,  and  in  place  of  the  phrase,  the 
"  selection  of  mind/'  I  should  be  quite  content,  if  the 
reader  so  prefers,  to  speak  of  the  selection  of  nerve  or 
nervous  selection.  And  if  I  may  for  a  moment  an- 
ticipate the  conclusion,  we  may  say  that,  in  and  for 
the  future,  the  process  of  selection  for  life  and  parent- 
hood, as  it  occurs  in  mankind,  must  be  based,  if  the 
highest  results  are  to  be  obtained,  upon  the  principle 
that  the  selection  of  bodily  qualities  other  than  those 
of  the  nervous  system  is  of  value  only  in  so  far  as 
these  serve  the  nervous  or  psychical  qualities.  For 
practical  and  for  theoretical  purposes  we  must  accept 
the  dictum  of  Professor  Forel  that  "the  brain  is  the 
man  " —  or,  to  be  more  accurate  and  less  epigram- 
matic, the  nervous  system  is  the  man.  If,  then,  we 
counsel  or  approve  of  any  selection  of  bone  or  muscle 
or  digestion,  or  any  other  bodily  organ  or  function; 
if  we  select  for  physical  health,  physical  energy,  lon- 
gevity, or  immunity  from  disease  —  our  estimate  of 
these  things,  one  and  all,  must  be  wholly  determined 
by  the  services  which  they  can  perform  for  the  nervous 
system,  whether  as  its  instruments,  its  guarantors  of 
health  and  persistence,  or  otherwise.  But  we  are  not 
to  regard  any  of  these  things  as  ends  in  themselves  - 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  this  temptation  will  con- 
stantly beset  us.  So  to  do  is  implicitly  to  deny  and 
renounce  the  supreme  character  of  man  —  which  is 
that,  in  him,  mind  or  nervous  system  is  the  master 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  61 

and  the  rest  of  the  body,  with  all  its  attributes,  the 
servant. 

THE  BODY  STILL  NECESSARY. —  Should  any  one  sup- 
pose that  the  principles  here  laid  down  would  speedily 
involve  us,  if  executed,  in  a  host  of  disasters,  let  him 
reconsider  that  conclusion.  Utterly  ignorant  or  jocose 
persons  have  hinted,  more  or  less  definitely,  that  if  a 
race  of  mankind  were  to  be  bred  for  brains,  the  prod- 
uct would  be  a  most  misbegotten  creature  approaching 
as  near  as  possible  —  and  that  imperfectly  enough  — 
to  the  ideal  of  disembodied  thought,  a  creature  mon- 
strous as  to  head,  impotent  and  puny  as  to  limbs,  and, 
in  effect,  the  least  effective  of  living  creatures.  This 
supposition  may  be  commended  as  the  last  word  in 
the  way  of  nonsense.  It  depends  upon  an  abysmal 
ignorance  of  the  necessary  and  permanent  relations 
which  subsist  between  mind  and  body.  It  assumes 
that  the  healthy  mind  can  be  obtained  without  the 
healthy  body;  it  is  totally  unaware  that  the  nervous 
system  cannot  work  properly  unless  the  blood  be  well 
aerated  by  active  lungs  and  distributed  by  a  healthy 
heart;  that  unless  certain  glands,  of  which  these  peo- 
ple have  never  heard,  are  acting  properly,  the  nervous 
system  falls  into  decadence,  and  the  man  becomes  an 
imbecile.  To  breed  for  brains  is  most  assuredly  to 
breed  for  body  too:  only  that  the  end  in  view  will 
guide  us  as  to  what  points  of  body  to  breed  for.  For 
instance,  it  would  prevent  us  from  having  any  foolish 
ambitions  as  to  increasing  the  stature  of  the  race,  or 
the  average  weight  of  its  muscular  apparatus.  Stat- 
ure may  be  a  point  to  breed  for  in  the  race-culture  of 
giraffes  and  muscle  in  the  race-culture  of  the  hippo- 


62      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

potamus :  but  such  bodily  characters  are  of  no  moment 
for  man,  who  is  above  all  things  a  mind.  Whilst  we 
shall  pay  little  attention  to  these,  we  or  our  descend- 
ants will  be  abundantly  concerned  with  the  preserva- 
tion and  culture  of  those  many  bodily  characters  upon 
which  the  health  and  vigor  and  sanity  and  durability 
of  the  nervous  system  depend.  Further,  notwith- 
standing all  the  nonsense  that  has  been  written  concern- 
ing the  man  of  the  future,  with  bald  and  swollen  head, 
begoggled  eyes,  toothless  gums,  and  wicker-work  skel- 
eton, those  who  know  the  alphabet  of  physiology  and 
psychology  are  warranted  in  believing  that  wisely  to 
breed  for  brains  will  be  to  breed  for  beauty  too  —  not 
of  the  skin-deep  but  of  the  mind-deep  variety  —  and 
also  for  grace  and  energy  and  versatility  of  physique. 
Those  who  worship  brawn  as  brawn  may  be  com- 
mended to  the  ox;  those  who  respect  brawn  as  the  in- 
strument of  brain,  and  value  it  not  by  its  horse-power 
but  by  its  capacity  as  the  agent  of  purpose,  will  find 
nothing  to  complain  of  in  the  kinds  of  men  and  women 
whom  a  wise  eugenics  has  for  its  ideal. 

THE  ERECT  ATTITUDE. —  And  now  we  must  briefly 
consider  that  "  most  remarkable  fact  in  the  anatomy 
of  man  "  to  which  allusion  was  made  in  the  first  para- 
graph. It  is  that,  as  the  most  philosophic  anatomists 
are  now  coming  to  believe,  the  body  of  man  actually 
represents  the  goal  of  physical  evolution.  Of  course 
the  common  opinion  is  quite  apart  from  science,  that 
man  is  the  highest  of  creatures,  and  that  there  is  no 
more  to  be  expected.  But  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
regards  man  as  the  latest,  not  necessarily  the  last, 
term  in  an  agelong  process  which  is  by  no  means  com- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  63 

pleted,  and  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view  it  is 
thus  a  daring,  and  at  first  hearing,  a  preposterous 
thing  to  say  that,  so  far  as  the  physical  aspects  of  or- 
ganic evolution  are  concerned,  the  body  of  man  ap- 
parently represents  the  logical  and  final  conclusion  of 
the  agelong  process  which  has  produced  it.  Let  us 
attempt  very  briefly  to  outline  the  argument. 

We  may  say  that  a  great  step  was  taken  when  from 
the  chaos  of  the  invertebrate  or  backbone-less  animals 
there  emerged  the  first  vertebrates.  This  unquestion- 
ably occurred  in  the  sea,  the  first  backbone  being 
evolved  in  a  fish-like  creature  which,  in  the  course  of 
time,  developed  two  lateral  fins.  These  became  mod- 
ified into  two  pairs  of  limbs,  the  sole  function  of 
which  was  locomotion.  In  the  next  group  of  verte- 
brates, the  amphibia  —  such  as  the  frog  —  we  see 
these  limbs  terminating  each  in  five  digits.  (The 
frog,  so  to  say,  decided  that  we  should  count  in  tens.) 
Now  some  creatures  have  specialized  their  limbs  at 
the  cost  of  certain  fingers.  The  horse,  for  instance, 
walks  on  the  nails  (the  hoofs)  of  its  middle  fingers 
and  its  middle  toes.  In  the  main  line  of  ascent,  how- 
ever, none  of  these  precious  fingers  (and  toes) — how 
precious  let  the  typist  or  the  pianist  say  —  have  been 
sacrificed.  There  has  been,  however,  in  later  ages  a 
tendency  towards  the  specialization  of  the  front  limbs. 
Used  for  locomotion  at  times,  they  are  also  used  for 
grasping  and  tearing  and  holding,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
tiger,  a  member  of  the  carnivora,  a  relatively  late  and 
high  group  of  mammals.  But  the  carnivore  does  not 
carry  its  food  to  its  mouth,  and  the  cat  carries  her 
kittens  in  her  mouth  and  not  with  her  paws.  In  the 


&J.       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

apes  and  monkeys,  however,  this  specialization  goes 
further,  and  things  are  actually  carried  by  the  hands 
to  the  mouth  —  a  very  great  advance  on  the  tiger, 
who  fixes  his  food  with  his  "  hands,"  and  then  carries 
his  mouth  to  it.  Food  to  mouth  instead  of  mouth 
to  food  is  a  much  later  stage  in  evolution,  a  fact  which 
may  be  recalled  when  we  watch  the  table  manners  of 
certain  people.  Finally,  in  man  the  specialization 
reaches  its  natural  limit  by  the  complete  liberation  of 
the  fore-limbs  from  the  purpose  of  locomotion  — 
though  the  crawling  gait  of  a  child  recalls  the  base 
degrees  by  which  we  did  ascend.  This  great  change 
depends  upon  an  alteration  in  the  axis  of  the  body. 
The  first  fishes,  like  present  fishes,  were  horizontal 
animals,  but  gradually  the  axis  has  become  altered, 
in  the  main  line  of  progress,  until  the  semi-erect  apes 
yield  to  man  the  erect,  or  "man  the  erected,"  as 
Stevenson  called  him.  The  son  of  horizontal  animals, 
he  is  himself  vertical :  the  "  pronograde  "  has  become 
"  orthograde."  Thus  the  phrase,  "  the  ascent  of 
man,"  may  be  read  in  two  senses.  This  capital  fad 
has  depended  upon  a  shifting  of  the  center  of  gravity 
of  the  body,  which  in  adult  man  lies  behind  the  hip- 
joints,  whereas  in  his  ancestors  and  in  the  small  baby 
(still  in  the  four-footed  stage)  it  lies  in  front  of  the 
hip-joints.  Thus,  whilst  other  creatures  tend  nat- 
urally to  fall  forwards,  so  that  they  must  use  their 
fore-limbs  for  support  and  locomotion,  the  whole  body 
of  man  above  the  hip-joints  tends  naturally  to  fall 
backwards,  being  prevented  from  doing  so  by  two 
great  ligaments  which  lie  in  front  of  the  hip-joints 
and  have  a  unique  development  in  man.  The  corn- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  65 

plete  erection  of  the  spine  means  that  the  skull,  in- 
stead of  being  suspended  in  front,  is  now  poised  upon 
the  top  of  the  spinal  column.  The  field  of  vision  is 
enormously  enlarged,  and  it  is  possible  to  sweep  a 
great  extent  of  horizon  at  a  moment's  notice.  But 
the  complete  discharge  of  the  fore-limbs  from  the 
function  of  locomotion  has  far  vaster  consequences, 
especially  as  they  now  assume  the  function  of  educat- 
ing their  master,  the  brain,  and  enabling  him  to  em- 
ploy them  for  higher  and  higher  purposes. 

Thus,  when  we  ask  ourselves  whether  there  is  any 
further  goal  for  physical  evolution,  the  answer  is 
that  none  can  be  seen.  So  far  as  physical  evolution 
is  concerned  the  goal  has  been  attained  with  the  erect 
attitude.  Future  changes  in  the  anatomy  of  man  will 
not  be  positive  but  negative.  There  doubtless  will  be 
a  certain  lightening  of  the  ship,  the  casting  overboard 
of  inherited  superfluities,  but  that  is  all:  except  that 
we  may  hope  for  certain  modifications  in  the  way  of 
increasing  the  adaptation  of  the  body  to  the  erect  atti- 
tude, which  at  present  bears  very  hardly  in  many  ways 
upon  the  body  of  man,  and  much  more  so  upon  the 
body  of  woman. 

Thus  race-culture  will  certainly  not  aim  at  the 
breeding  of  physical  freaks  of  any  kind,  nor  yet  at 
such  things  as  stature.  It  must  begin  by  clearly  rec- 
ognizing what  are  the  factors  which  in  man  possess 
supreme  survival-value,  and  it  must  aim  at  their  rein- 
forcement rather  than  at  the  maintenance  of  those  fac- 
tors which,  of  dominant  value  in  lower  forms  of  life, 
have  been  superseded  in  him.  A  few  words  will  suf- 
fice to  show  in  what  fashion  man  has  already  shed 


66       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

vital  characters  which,  superfluous  and  burdensome 
for  him,  have  in  former  times  been  of  the  utmost  sur- 
vival-value. 

THE  DENUDATION  OF  MAN. —  As  contrasted  with 
the  whole  mass  of  his  predecessors,  man  comes  into 
the  world  denuded  of  defensive  armor,  destitute  of 
offensive  weapons,  possessed  alone  of  the  potentialities 
of  the  physical.  So  far  as  defense  is  concerned,  he 
has  neither  fur  nor  feathers  nor  scales,  but  is  the  most 
naked  and  thinnest  skinned  of  animals.  In  his  Auto- 
biography, Spencer  tells  us  how  he  and  Huxley,  sitting 
on  the  cliff  at  St.  Andrews  and  watching  some  boys 
bathing,  "  marvelled  over  the  fact,  seeming  especially 
strange  when  they  are  no  longer  disguised  by  clothes, 
that  human  beings  should  dominate  over  all  other 
creatures  and  play  the  wonderul  part  they  do  on  the 
earth."  l  But  man  is  not  only  without  armor  against 
either  living  enemies  or  cold;  he  is  also  without 
weapons  of  attack.  His  teeth  are  practically  worth- 
less in  this  respect,  not  only  on  account  of  their  small 
size  but  also  because  his  chin,  a  unique  possession,  and 
the  shape  of  his  jaws,  make  them  singularly  unfit  for 
catching  or  grasping.  For  claws  he  has  merely  nails, 
capable  only  of  the  feeblest  scratching;  he  can  dis- 
charge no  poisons  from  his  mouth ;  he  cannot  envelop 
himself  in  darkness  in  order  to  hide  himself;  his 
speediest  and  most  enduring  runner  is  a  breathless 
laggard.  And,  lastly,  he  is  at  first  almost  bereft  of  in- 

1  We  may  recall  the  words  of  Lear : — 

"  Is  man  no  more  than  this  ?  Consider  him  well :  Thou  owest 
the  worm  no  silk,  the  beast  no  hide,  the  sheep  no  wool,  the  cat 
no  perfume:  .  .  .  Thou  art  the  thing  itself:  unaccommo- 
dated man  is  no  more  but  such  a  poor,  bare,  forked  animal  as 
thou  art." 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  67 

stinct,  has  to  be  burnt  in  order  to  dread  the  fire,  and 
cannot  find  his  own  way  to  the  breast.  His  sole  in- 
strument of  dominance  is  his  mind  in  all  its  attributes. 

On  the  grounds  thus  indicated,  we  must  be  wholly 
opposed  to  all  proposals  for  race  education  and  race- 
culture,  and  to  all  social  practices,  which  assume  more 
or  less  consciously  that,  for  all  his  boasting,  man  is 
after  all  only  an  animal:  whilst  we  must  applaud  the 
selection  and  culture  of  the  physical  exactly  in  so  far 
as,  but  no  further  than,  it  makes  for  health  and 
strength  of  the  physical  —  or,  if  the  reader  dislikes 
these  expressions,  the  health  and  strength  of  that  par- 
ticular part  of  the  physical  which  we  call  the  nervous 
system. 

It  used  to  be  generally  asserted  that  whilst,  in  a 
civilized  community,  we  do  not  expect  to  find  the  big- 
gest or  most  muscular  man  King  or  Prime  Minister, 
yet  amongst  savage  tribes  it  is  the  physical,  muscle  and 
bone  and  brutality,  that  determines  leadership.  This, 
however,  we  now  know  to  be  untrue  even  for  the 
earliest  stages  of  society  that  anthropologists  can  rec- 
ognize. The  leader  of  the  savage  tribe  is  not  the 
biggest  man  but  the  cleverest.  The  suggestion  is 
therefore  that,  even  in  the  earliest  stages  of  human 
society,  the  plane  of  selection  has  already  been  largely 
transferred  from  brawn  to  brain  or  from  physique  to 
psyche.  It  has  always  been  so,  we  may  be  well  sure. 
The  Drift  men  of  Taubach,  living  in  the  inter-glacial 
period,  could  kill  the  full-grown  elephant  and  rhinoce- 
ros. Says  Professor  Ranke :  "  It  is  the  mind  of  man 
that  shows  itself  superior  to  the  most  powerful  brute 
force,  even  where  we  meet  for  the  first  time."  This 


68       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

remains  true  whether  the  brute  force  be  displayed  in 
brutes  or  in  other  men. 

The  great  fact  of  intelligence,  as  against  material 
apparatus  of  any  kind  and  even  as  against  rigid  in- 
stinct, is  its  limitless  applicability.  With  this  one  in- 
strument man  achieves  what  without  it  could  be 
achieved  only  by  a  creature  who  combined  in  his  own 
person  every  kind  of  material  apparatus,  offensive 
and  defensive,  locomotor  or  what  not,  with  animal 
life,  and  vegetable  life  too,  have  invented  in  the  past 
—  and  not  even  by  such  a  creature.  Man  is  a  poor 
pedestrian,  but  his  mind  makes  locomotives  which 
rival  or  surpass  the  fish  of  the  sea,  the  antelope  on 
land,  if  not  yet  the  bird  of  the  air;  his  teeth  are  of 
poor  quality,  but  his  mind  supplies  him  with  artifi- 
cial ones  and  enables  him  to  cook  and  otherwise  to 
prepare  his  food.  All  the  physical  methods  are 
self-limited,  but  the  method  of  mind  has  no  limits; 
it  is  even  more  than  cumulative,  and  multiplies  its 
capacities  by  geometrical  progression. 

THE  CULT  OF  MUSCLE. —  A  word  must  really  be 
said  here,  in  accordance  with  all  the  foregoing  argu- 
ment, against  the  recent  revival  of  what  may  be  called 
the  Cult  of  Muscle.  This  cult  of  muscle,  or  belief  in 
physical  culture,  so  called,  as  the  true  means  of  race- 
culture,  undoubtedly  requires  to  have  its  absurd  pre- 
tensions censured.  We  now  have  many  flourishing 
schools  of  physical  culture  which  desire  to  persuade  us 
to  a  belief  in  the  monstrous  anachronism  that,  even  in 
man,  muscle  and  bone  are  still  pre-eminent.  They 
want  as  many  people  as  possible  to  believe  that  the 
only  thing  really  worth  aiming  at  is  what  they  under- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  69 

stand  by  physical  culture.  They  pride  themselves 
upon  knowing  the  names  and  positions  of  all  the 
muscles  in  the  body,  and  on  being  able  to  provide  us 
with  instruments  to  develop  all  these  muscles:  they 
are  there  and  they  ought  to  be  developed,  and  you  are 
a  mere  parody  of  what  a  man  ought  to  be  unless  they 
are  developed  —  none  of  them  must  be  neglected. 
Many  people  have  been  persuaded  of  these  doctrines, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  physical  culture  schools 
do  thus  develop  a  large  number  of  muscles  which  have 
no  present  service  for  man  and  would  otherwise  have 
been  allowed  to  rest  in  a  decent  obscurity. 

In  order  to  prove  this  point,  let  us  instance  a  few 
muscles  which  it  is  utterly  absurd  to  regard  as  still 
possessing  any  survival-value  for  man.  In  the  sole  of 
the  foot  there  are  four  distinct  layers  of  muscles,  by 
means  of  which  it  is  theoretically  possible  to  turn  each 
individual  toe  to  the  left  or  the  right,  independently  of 
its  neighbors,  and  to  move  the  various  parts  of  each 
toe  upon  themselves,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  fingers. 
All  this  muscular  apparatus  is  a  mere  survival,  worth 
nothing  at  all  for  the  special  purpose  of  the  human 
foot.  In  point  of  fact  the  human  foot  is  now  deca- 
dent, and  probably  not  more  than  two  or  three  speci- 
men* of  feet  in  a  hundred  contain  the  complete  nor- 
mal equipment  of  muscles,  bones  and  joints  —  as  Sir 
William  Turner  showed  many  years  ago.  Thus 
many  feet  are  possessed  of  muscles  designed  to  act 
upon  joints  which  have  not  been  developed  at  all  in  the 
feet  in  question  and  which,  if  they  were  there,  would 
not  be  of  the  smallest  use.  To  take  another  instance, 
we  do  not  now  use  our  external  ears  for  the  purpose 


70      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

of  catching  sound,  though  we  still  possess  muscles 
which,  if  thrown  into  action,  would  move  the  external 
ear  in  various  directions.  Again,  there  is  a  flat,  thin 
stratum  of  muscle  on  the  front  of  the  neck,  corre- 
sponding to  a  muscle  which  in  the  dog  and  the  horse 
is  quite  important,  but  which  is  of  no  use  to  us.  All 
would  be  agreed  as  to  the  absurdity  of  devoting  con- 
tinued conscious  effort  to  the  development  of  these 
particular  muscles;  but  in  point  of  fact  we  have  a 
whole  host  of  muscles  which  are  in  a  similar  case,  and 
which  are  nevertheless  objects  of  the  most  tender 
solicitude  on  the  part  of  the  physical  culturist.  In 
general,  this  modern  craze,  whilst  highly  profitable  to 
those  who  foster  it,  is  most  misguided  and  reaction- 
ary. Modern  knowledge  of  heredity  teaches  us  that 
our  descendants  will  not  profit  muscularly  in  the 
slightest  degree  because  of  our  devotion  to  these  relics : 
the  blacksmith's  baby  has  promise  of  no  bigger  biceps 
than  any  one  else's.  Further,  the  over-doing  of  mus- 
cular culture  is  responsible  for  the  consumption  of  a 
large  amount  of  energy.  A  muscle  is  a  highly  vital 
and  active  organ,  requiring  a  large  amount  of  nour- 
ishment, which  its  possessor  has  to  obtain,  consume, 
digest  and  distribute.  The  more  time  and  energy 
spent  in  sustaining  useless  muscles,  the  less  is  available 
for  immeasurably  more  important  concerns.  Man 
does  not  live  by  brawn  alone:  he  does  live  by  brain 
alone. 

STRENGTH  VERSUS  SKILL. —  So  far  as  true  race-cul- 
ture is  concerned,  we  should  regard  our  muscles 
merely  as  servants  or  instruments  of  the  will.  Since 
we  have  learnt  to  employ  external  forces  for  our  pur- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  71 

poses,  the  mere  bulk  of  a  muscle  is  now  a  matter  of 
little  importance.  Of  the  utmost  importance,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  power  to  co-ordinate  and  graduate 
the  activity  of  our  muscles,  so  that  they  may  become 
highly  trained  servants.  This  is  a  matter,  however, 
not  of  muscle  at  all  but  of  nervous  education.  Its 
foundation  cannot  be  laid  by  mechanical  things  like 
dumb-bells  and  exercises,  but  by  games,  in  which  will 
and  purpose  and  co-ordination  are  incessantly  em- 
ployed. In  other  words,  the  only  physical  culture 
worth  talking  about  is  nervous  culture. 

The  principles  here  laid  down  are  daily  defied  in 
very  large  measure  in  our  nurseries,  our  schools,  and 
our  barrack  yards.  The  play  of  a  child,  spontaneous 
and  purposeful,  is  supremely  human  and  characteris- 
tic. Although,  when  considered  from  the  outside,  it 
is  simply  a  means  of  muscular  development,  properly 
considered  it  is  really  the  means  of  nervous  develop- 
ment. Here  we  see  muscles  used  as  human  muscles 
should  alone  be  used  —  as  instruments  of  mind.  In 
schools  *  the  same  principles  should  be  recognized. 
From  the  biological  and  psychological  point  of  view 
the  playing-field  is  immeasurably  superior  to  the  gym- 
nasium. But  it  is  in  the  barrack  yard  that  the  pitiable 
confusion  between  the  survival-value  of  the  mind  and 
muscle  respectively  in  man  is  most  ludicrously  and 
disastrously  exemplified. 

The  glorious  truth  upon  which  we  appear  to  act  is 
that  man  is  an  animated  machine ;  that  the  business  of 
the  soldier  is  not  to  think,  not  to  be  an  individual,  but 
to  be  an  assemblage  of  muscles.  We  see  the  marks  of 
this  idea  even  in  a  fine  poem :  "  Their's  not  to  reason 


72       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

why,  their's  but  to  do  or  die  " —  which,  of  course, 
might  just  as  well  be  said  of  a  stud  of  horses  or  motor- 
cars. Further,  our  worship  of  the  machine  is,  con- 
sistently enough,  an  unintelligent  worship.  We  do 
not  even  recognize  the  best  conditions  for  its  action. 
Every  year  hundreds  of  young  soldiers,  originally 
healthy,  have  their  hearts  and  lungs  and  other  vital 
organs  permanently  injured  by  the  imbecile  attitude 
of  chest  —  that  of  abnormal  expansion  —  which  they 
are  required  to  adopt  during  hard  work.  Army  doc- 
tors are  now  protesting  against  this,  but  it  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  fitness  of  things  that  the  cult  of 
muscle  as  against  intelligence  should  be  unintelligent. 
I  repeat  that  whilst  in  the  study  of  race-culture  the 
physical  cannot  be  ignored,  since  the  psychical  is  so 
largely  dependent  upon  it,  yet  the  physical  is  of  worth 
to  us  only  in  so  far  as  it  serves  the  psychical.  The  race 
the  culture  of  which  we  propose  to  undertake  has  long 
ago  determined  to  abandon  the  physical  in  itself  as  an 
instrument  of  success.  We  are  not  attempting  the 
culture  of  the  cretaceous  reptiles,  which  staked  their 
all  upon  muscle,  and  finally,  having  become  as  large 
as  houses  —  and  as  agile  —  suffered  extinction.  We 
are  attempting  the  culture  of  a  species  which,  so  far  as 
the  physical  is  concerned,  has  long  ago  crossed  the  Ru- 
bicon or  burnt  its  boats.  Even  if  Mr.  Sandow  and  the 
drill-sergeant  had  their  way  to  the  utmost,  and  having 
finally  eliminated  all  traces  of  mind,  succeeded  in  pro- 
ducing the  strongest  and  most  perfect  physical  ma- 
chine that  could  be  made  from  the  human  body,  the 
species  so  produced  would  go  down  in  a  generation 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  73 

before  the  elements,  or  before  any  living  species 
that  may  be  named.  Man  has  staked  his  all  upon 
mind.  The  only  physical  development  that  is  really 
worth  anything  to  such  a  race  is  that  which  edu- 
cates intelligence  and  morality,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  serves  for  their  expression,  on  the  other. 

If  there  is  any  salient  and  irresistible  tendency  in 
our  civilization  to-day,  it  is  the  persistent  decadence 
of  muscle  and  of  all  of  which  muscle  is  the  type,  as 
an  instrument  of  survival-value.  The  development 
of  machinery,  much  deplored  by  the  short-sighted,  is 
in  the  direct  line  of  progress,  because  it  reduces  the  im- 
portance of  muscle  and  throws  all  its  weight  into  the 
scale  of  mind.  Hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water  are  becoming  less  and  less  necessary,  not  because 
mechanical  force  is  not  needed  but  because  the  human 
intelligence  is  learning  how  to  supersede  the  human 
machine  as  its  source.  Every  development  of  ma- 
chinery makes  the  man  who  can  merely  offer  his 
muscles  of  less  value  to  the  community.  Long  ago 
—  not  so  very  long  ago  in  some  cases  —  it  was  quite 
sufficient  for  a  man  to  be  able  to  say  "  I  am  a  good 
machine: "  he  was  worth  his  keep  and  had  his  chance 
of  becoming  a  parent;  but  the  man  whom  society 
wants  now-a-days  is  not  the  man  who  is  a  good  ma- 
chine but  the  man  who  can  make  one.  These  ele- 
mentary truths  are  hidden,  however,  from  the  politi- 
cal quacks  who  discourse  to  us  upon  unemployment. 

Herbert  Spencer's  remark  that  it  is  necessary  to  be 
a  good  animal  has  an  element  of  truth  in  it  which  was 
utterly  ignored  and  needed  proclamation  at  that  time ; 


74       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

but  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  good  animal  only  in  so  far 
as  that  state  makes  for  being  a  good  man  —  and  not 
an  iota  further. 

The  present  interest  in  many  most  important  aspects 
of  physical  education,  such  as  may  be  summed  up  un- 
der the  phrase  "  school  hygiene,"  must  not  blind  us  to 
the  great  principle  that  physical  education  is  a  means 
and  not  an  end.  Our  present  educational  system, 
which  permits  schooling  to  end  just  when  it  should 
begin,  or  rather  sooner,  and  which,  even  through  our 
Government  Departments,  permits  boys  to  be  used  as 
little  more  than  animated  machines,  such  as  telegraph 
boys  —  is  very  largely  responsible  for  the  great  na- 
tional evil  of  unemployment,  which  we  treat  with 
soup-kitchens.  We  shall  revise  a  large  proportion  of 
our  educational,  political  and  social  methods  just  so 
soon  as  —  but  not  before  —  we  get  into  our  heads  the 
idea  that  in  human  society,  and  pre-eminently  in  so- 
ciety to-day,  the  survival- value  of  mind  and  conse- 
quently the  selection  of  mind  must  predominate  over 
the  survival-value  and  consequent  selection  of  muscle. 
Further,  whatever  factors  tend  to  enhance  the  sur- 
vival-value of  the  physical  are  ipso  facto  making  for 
retrogression  and  a  return  to  the  order  of  the  beast. 
Whatever  tend  to  enhance  the  survival- value  of  the 
psychical  —  by  which  I  most  assuredly  include  not 
only  intelligence  but,  for  instance,  motherhood  —  are 
ipso  facto  forces  of  progress.  The  products  of  prog- 
ress are  not  machinery  but  men  and  the  well-drilled- 
machine  idea  of  a  man  ought  to  be  as  obsolete  as  more 
than  one  recent  war  has  proved  it  disastrous. 

There  is  here  to  be  read  no  pessimistic  suggestion 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  75 

that  the  psychical  is  in  any  permanent  danger.  No 
one  can  think  so  who  knows  its  strength  and  the  rela- 
tive impotence  of  the  physical,  but  it  is  certainly  pos- 
sible that  the  course  of  progress  may  be  greatly  de- 
layed in  any  given  nation  or  race  by  worship  of  the 
physical,  or  even,  as  Sparta  shows,  by  worship  of  what 
may  be  called  the  physical  virtues  as  against  the  moral 
and  intellectual  virtues.  But  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  survival  of  any  particular  race  or  nation  have 
to  remember  that  arrest  or  retardation  of  progress 
therein,  relatively  to  its  wiser  neighbors,  must,  before 
long,  result  in  its  utter  downfall. 

WHAT  ARE  WE  TO  CHOOSE?  —  The  argument  that 
the  selection  of  mind  has  been  dominant  throughout 
human  history  is  reinforced  by  such  knowledge  of  that 
history  as  we  possess.  There  is  no  record  of  any  race 
that  established  itself  in  virtue  of  great  stature  or  ex- 
ceptional muscular  strength.  Even  in  cases  of  the 
most  purely  military  dominance,  it  was  not  force  as 
such,  but  discipline  and  method,  that  determined  suc- 
cess; whilst  some  of  the  greatest  soldiers  in  history 
have  been  physically  the  smallest.  The  statement  of 
the  anthropologists,  already  alluded  to,  regarding  the 
selection  of  the  leading  men  in  primitive  tribes,  may 
safely  be  taken  as  always  true :  selection  in  human  so- 
ciety has  always  been,  in  the  main,  selection  of  that 
which,  for  survival-value,  is  the  dominant  character 
of  man,  mind  in  its  widest  sense.  We  shall  see,  later, 
that  physical  eugenics  can  by  no  means  be  ignored: 
but  our  guiding  principle  must  be  that  the  physical  is 
of  worth  only  in  so  far  as  it  serves  the  psychical,  and 
is  worse  than  worthless  in  so  far  as  it  does  not.  It 


76       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

would  surely  be  well,  for  instance,  that  we  should 
breed  for  "  energy,"  to  use  Mr.  Galton's  term :  but 
the  energy  we  desire,  and  the  energy  he  commends,  is 
nervous,  not  muscular.  The  confusion  between  two 
radically  different  things,  vitality  and  muscularity,  is 
however,  almost  universal,  though  it  will  not  stand 
a  moment's  examination.  In  a  volume  devoted  to 
personal  hygiene  I  have  discussed  this  point,  which  is 
of  real  moment  both  for  the  individual  and  for  the 
theory  of  eugenics.1 

It  is  of  interest  to  note,  in  passing  from  this  ques- 
tion, that  inherent  facts  of  the  human  constitution 
would  interdict  us  if  we  thought  it  a  fit  ideal  to  breed 
for  stature  or  bulk.  Giants  are  essentially  morbid  — 
not  favorable  but  unfavorable  variations.  They  are 
very  frequently  childless  and  almost  constantly  slow- 
witted.  Their  condition  is  really  a  mild  form  of  a 
well-marked  and  highly  characteristic  disease  known 
as  acromegaly,  and  distinguished  by  great  enlargement 
of  the  face  and  extremities.  The  malady  depends 
upon  peculiarities  in  the  glandular  activities  of  the 
body:  and  the  state  of  these  which  makes  for  great 
stature  and  bulk  makes  against  intelligence.  It  is  sug- 
gested, then,  that  any  considerable  increase  of  human 
bulk  and  stature  could  only  be  obtained  at  the  cost 

1  Says  Darwin,  "  So  little  is  this  subject  understood,  that  I 
have  heard  surprise  repeatedly  expressed  at  such  great  monsters 
as  the  Mastodon  .  .  .  having  become  extinct;  as  if  mere 
bodily  strength  gave  victory  in  the  battle  of  life.  Mere  size,  on 
the  contrary,  would  in  some  cases  determine  .  .  .  quicker 
extermination  from  the  greater  amount  of  requisite  food."  In 
the  Russo-Japanese  War,  one  of  the  effective  factors  was  the 
greater  area  of  the  Russian  soldier  as  a  target,  and  the  disparity 
between  the  food  requirements  of  the  little  victors  and  the  big 
losers. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  77 

of  intelligence.  It  would  be  very  dear  at  the 
price. 

When  we  come  to  the  subject  of  selection  for  par- 
enthood in  man  through  the  preferences  exhibited  by 
individuals  for  members  of  the  opposite  sex,  we  shall 
see  that  what  Darwin  called  "  sexual  selection "  is 
certainly  a  reality  in  the  case  of  man,  whether  or  not 
it  be  so  in  the  case  of  the  lower  animals.  We  shall 
see  that  this  most  potent  factor  in  human  evolution 
acts  even  now  very  favorably  and  is  capable  of  having 
its  value  enormously  enhanced.  In  the  selection  of 
husbands,  nervous  or  psychical  factors  are  notably  of 
high  survival-value  in  civilized  communities.  In  the 
selection  of  wives  the  survival-value  of  the  physical 
is  still  very  high:  but  it  may  be  hoped  and  believed 
that  the  present  tendency  is  to  attach  relatively  less 
importance  to  them  and  more  to  the  psychical  ele- 
ments of  the  chosen.  This  tendency  must  be  fur- 
thered to  the  utmost  point  beyond  which  the  physical 
requisites  for  motherhood  would  suffer  weakening  — 
but  no  further. 

HOW   ARE   WE   TO   ESTIMATE    CIVIC    WORTH? We 

have  already  observed  that  it  is  incorrect  to  use  the 
word  "  fit "  as  if  it  were  synonymous  with  "  worthy." 
If  we  insist  on  using  this  term,  which  means  only 
adapted  to  conditions,  we  must  define  those  conditions. 
We  must  say  that  we  desire  to  further  the  production 
of  those  who  are  fit  for  citizenship,  and  to  disfavor  the 
production  of  those  who  are  unfit  for  citizenship.  We 
shall  thereby  dispose  at  least  of  those  vexatious  ob- 
jectors who  tell  us  that  many  eminent  criminals  are  in- 


78       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

dividually  superior  to  many  eminent  judges.  The 
statement  is  doubtless  untrue,  but  if  it  were  true  it 
would  still  be  irrelevant.  A  criminal  may  be  individ- 
ually a  remarkable  personality,  but  in  so  far  as  he  is 
a  criminal,  he  is  unfit  for  citizenship. 

It  is  far  better  to  use  consistently  Mr.  Galton's 
phrase,  "  civic  worth,"  or,  for  short,  "  worth."  We 
may  here  note  Mr.  Galton's  most  recent  remarks  on 
what  he  meant  by  worth :  — 

"By  this  I  mean  the  civic  worthiness,  or  the  Value  to  the 
State,  of  a  person,  as  it  would  probably  be  assessed  by  experts, 
say,  by  such  of  his  fellow-workers  as  have  earned  the  respect  of 
the  community  in  the  midst  of  which  they  live.  Thus  the  worth 
of  soldiers  would  be  such  as  it  would  be  rated  by  respected  sol- 
diers, students  by  students,  business  men  by  business  men,  artists 
by  artists,  and  so  on.  The  State  is  a  vastly  complex  organism, 
and  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  Proportional  Representation  of  its 
best  parts  should  be  an  avowed  object  of  issuing  invitations  to 
these  gatherings. 

"  Speaking  only  for  myself,  if  I  had  to  classify  persons  accord- 
ing to  Worth,  I  should  consider  each  of  them  under  the  three 
heads  of  Physique,  Ability,  and  Character,  subject  to  the  provi- 
sion that  inferiority  in  any  one  of  the  three  should  outweigh 
superiority  in  the  other  two.  I  rank  Physique  first,  because  it  is 
not  only  very  valuable  in  itself  and  allied  to  many  other  good 
qualities,  but  has  the  additional  merit  of  being  easily  rated. 
Ability  I  should  place  second  on  similar  grounds,  and  Character 
third,  though  in  real  importance  it  stands  first  of  all."  * 

We  shall  certainly  misunderstand  this  quotation  un- 
less we  clearly  realize  that  Mr.  Gal  ton  is  speaking  of 
eugenic  worth  —  that  is  to  say,  of  worth  in  relation  to 
parenthood  and  heredity.  No  one,  of  course,  would 
assert  for  a  moment  that  inferiority  in  the  matter  of 

1  Quoted  from  a  Paper  read  by  Mr.  Galton  before  the  Eugenics 
Education  Society,  October  14,  1908,  and  published  in  Nature, 
October  22,  1908. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MIND  79 

physique  outweighed  superiority  in  ability  and  charac- 
ter, so  far  as  our  estimate  of  an  individual  as  an  indi- 
vidual is  concerned,  nor  yet  so  far  as  our  estimate  of 
him  as  a  citizen  is  concerned.  But  from  the  eugenic 
standpoint,  as  a  parent  of  citizens  to  come,  such  a 
person,  though  he  may  have  himself  saved  the  State, 
is  on  the  average  rightly  to  be  regarded  as  unworthy 
on  the  eugenic  scale  —  it  being  assumed,  of  course, 
that  the  inferiority  of  physique  in  the  person  in  ques- 
tion is  either  native  and  therefore  transmissible,  or 
else  due  to  forms  of  disease,  or  poisoning,  such  as, 
according  to  our  knowledge  of  ante-natal  pathology, 
will  probably  involve  degeneracy  on  the  part  of  his 
children.  I  would  add  that  love  is  as  precious  as 
ability,  if  not  more  so,  and  that  we  should  aim  at  its 
increase  by  making  parenthood  the  most  responsible 
act  in  life,  so  that  children  are  born  only  to  those  who 
love  children,  and  who  will  transmit  their  high  meas- 
ure of  the  parental  instinct  and  the  tender  emotion 
which  is  its  correlate.1 

iSee  the  Author's  paper,  "The  Psychology  of  Parenthood," 
Eugenics  Review,  April,  1909. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   MULTIPLICATION   OF   MAN 

"  Increase  and  multiply  " 

THE  ceaseless  multiplication  of  man  is  one  of  the 
facts  which  distinguish  him  from  all  other  living 
species,  animals  or  vegetable.1 

We  must  not  be  misled  by  such  a  case  as  that  of 
the  multiplication  of  rabbits  in  Australia.  Apart  from 
such  circumstances  as  human  interference,  the  earth  is 
already  crammed  with  life  of  a  kind,  not  the  highest 
life  nor  the  most  intense  life,  but  at  any  rate  fully  ex- 
tended life.  Man  alone  multiplies,  persistently,  irre- 
sistibly, and  has  done  so  from  the  very  first,  so  that, 
arising  locally,  he  is  now  diffused  over  the  whole  sur- 
face of  the  earth.  To  quote  from  Professor  Lan- 
kester  again :  "  Man  is  Nature's  rebel.  Where  Na- 
ture says  Die!  Man  says  I  will  live!  According 
to  the  law  previously  in  universal  operation  man 
should  have  been  limited  in  geographical  area,  killed 
by  extremes  of  cold  or  heat,  subject  to  starvation  if 
one  kind  of  diet  were  unobtainable,  and  should  have 
been  unable  to  increase  and  multiply,  just  as  are  his 
animal  relatives,  without  losing  his  specific  structure. 
.  .  .  But  man's  wits  and  his  will  have  enabled 

1  An  authoritative  statement  on  this  point  has  already  been 
quoted  from  Sir  E.  Rav  Lankester's  Romanes  Lecture  of  1905, 

80 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN         81 

him  ...  to  '  increase  and  multiply/  as  no  other 
animal,  without  change  of  form." 

Not  only  has  man  made  himself  the  only  animal 
which  constantly  increases  in  numbers,  but  this  in- 
crease, as  Professor  Lankester  points  out  in  another 
part  of  his  lecture,  already  threatening  certain  difficul- 
ties, will  be  much  more  rapid  than  at  present,  assum- 
ing the  birth-rate  to  remain  where  it  is,  when  disease 
is  controlled.  It  is  within  our  power,  as  Pasteur  de- 
clared long  ago,  to  abolish  all  parasitic,  infectious  or 
epidemic  disease.  This  must  be  and  will  be  done  — 
within  a  century,  I  have  little  doubt.  The  problem  of 
the  increase  of  human  population  will  become  more 
pressing  than  ever.  Professor  Lankester  suggests 
that  in  one  or  five  centuries  the  difficulty  raised  by 
our  multiplication,  "  would,  if  let  alone,  force  itself 
upon  a  desperate  humanity,  brutalized  by  over-crowd- 
ing and  the  struggle  for  food.  A  return  to  Nature's 
terrible  selection  of  the  fittest  may,  it  is  conceivable,  be 
in  this  way  in  store  for  us.  But  it  is  more  probable 
that  humanity  will  submit  to  a  restriction  by  the  com- 
munity in  respect  of  the  right  to  multiply."  The 
lecturer  added  that  we  must  therefore  perfect  our 
knowledge  of  heredity  in  man,  as  to  which  "  there  is 
absolutely  no  provision  in  any  civilized  community, 
and  no  conception  among  the  people  or  their  leaders, 
that  it  is  a  matter  which  concerns  any  one  but  farm- 
ers." 

THE  SECRET  OF  MULTIPLICATION. —  Professor  Lan- 
kester, however,  omits  to  point  out  the  astonishing 
paradox  involved  in  the  fact  that  —  as  I  pointed  out 
at  the  Royal  Institution  in  1907  —  man,  the  only 


82       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ceaselessly  multiplying  animal,  has  the  lowest  birth- 
rate of  any  living  creature.1  From  the  purely  arith- 
metical point  of  view,  what  does  it  mean?  We  may; 
defer  at  present  any  deeper  interpretation. 

It  means  necessarily  and  obviously  that  the  effective 
means  of  multiplication  is  not  a  high  birth-rate  but  a 
low  death-rate.  It  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the 
paradox  in  question  that  the  infant  death-rate  and  the 
general  death-rate  in  man  are  the  lowest  anywhere 
to  be  found.  Producing  fewer  young  he  alone  mul- 
tiplies.2 It  follows  that  a  smaller  proportion  of  those 
young  must  die.  Unless  it  is  supposed  by  bishops 
and  others,  then,  that  a  peculiar  value  attaches  to  the 
production  of  a  baby  shortly  to  be  buried,  the  sug- 
gestion evidently  is  the  same  as  that  to  which  every 
humanitarian  and  social  and  patriotic  impulse  guides 
us,  namely,  the  reduction  of  the  death-rate  and  espe- 
cially the  infant  mortality.  This  is  the  true  way  in 
which  to  insure  the  more  rapid  multiplication  of  man, 
if  that  be  desired.  I  believe  it  is  not  to  be  desired, 
but  in  any  case  the  reduction  of  the  death-rate  and  es- 
pecially of  the  infant  mortality  is  a  worthy  and  neces- 
sary end  in  itself,  and  need  not  inevitably  lead  to  our 
undue  multiplication  provided  that  the  birth-rate  falls. 
Hence  the  eugenists  and  the  Episcopal  Bench  may 

1  The  exception  of  one  or  two  large  animals,  like  the  elephant, 
is  not  important.    In  proportion  to  body  weight  man's  birth- 
rate is  lower  than  theirs.    And  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  "  infant  " 
mortality  is  very  low  in  this  case,  where  the  birth-rate  is  so  low. 
Says  Darwin,  of  the  young  elephant,  "  None  are  destroyed  by 
beasts  of  prey ;  for  even  the  tiger  in  India  most  rarely  dares  to 
attack  a  young  elephant  protected  by  its  dam."    The  dam  has  no 
factory  to  go  to,  and  no  beast  of  prey  to  sell  her  alcohols. 

2  "The  Fulmar  petrel  lays  but  one  egg,  yet  it  is  believed  to 
be  the  most  numerous  bird  in  the  world."     (Origin  of  Species, 
popular  edition,  p.  81.) 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          83 

join  hands  so  far  as  the  reduction  of  the  death-rate 
is  concerned,  and  the  only  persons  with  whom  a  prac- 
tical quarrel  remains  are  those  who  in  effect  applaud 
the  mother  who  boasts  that  she  has  buried  twelve. 

THE  FACTS  OF  HUMAN  MULTIPLICATION. —  Human 
population  continues  to  increase  notwithstanding  any 
changes  in  the  birth-rate.  This  fact  remains  true, 
as  shown  by  the  latest  obtainable  figures.  It  should  be 
one  of  the  dogmas  never  absent  from  the  foreground 
of  the  statesman's  mind.  Apparently  nothing,  how- 
ever, will  induce  us  to  take  this  little  forethought. 
When  we  build  a  bridge  across  the  Thames,  we  ig- 
nore it ;  when  we  widen  a  bridge  we  ignore  it  likewise. 
When  we  make  a  new  street  we  ignore  it;  when  we 
build  railways  and  railway  stations  we  ignore  it  — 
excusably,  perhaps,  in  this  case;  when  we  build  hos- 
pitals we  ignore  it;  four  times  out  of  five  there  is  no 
room  for  the  addition  of  a  single  ward  in  time  to  come. 
We  have  not  yet  even  learnt,  as  they  are  learning  in 
America  and  Germany,  how  to  acquire  the  outlying 
lands  of  cities  for  the  public  possession,  so  that  they 
may  be  properly  employed  as  the  city  grows.  The 
man  who  builds  himself  a  villa  on  the  outskirts  of  a 
city,  ignores  it,  and  is  staggered  by  it  in  ten  years. 
The  lover  of  nature  and  the  country  ignores  it: 
"  Just  look  at  this,"  he  says,  "  this  was  in  the  country 
when  first  I  knew  it,  look  at  these  horrible  rows  of 
villas !  "  The  only  possible  reply  to  such  a  person  is 
simply,  "Well,  my  dear  sir,  what  do  you  propose? 
General  infanticide?"  Most  important  of  all,  this 
fact,  that,  to  take  the  case  of  Great  Britain,  some  half 
million  babies  are  born  every  year  in  excess  over  the 


84       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

number  of  all  who  die  at  all  ages,  is  forgotten  by  our 
statesman  —  or  rather  by  our  politicians.  It  could, 
of  course,  not  be  forgotten  by  a  statesman.  Quite 
apart  from  remoter  consequences,  especially  in  relation 
to  the  wheat  supply,  this  persistent  multiplication  — 
which  one  has  actually  heard  denied  on  the  ground 
that  the  birth-rate  is  falling  —  is  of  urgent  moment 
to  all  of  us. 

In  1907  the  Census  Bureau  of  Washington  pub- 
lished some  figures  on  the  mortality  statistics  of  na- 
tions, a  summary  of  which  may  be  quoted :  "  In  all 
parts  of  the  civilized  world  both  the  birth-rates  and 
death-rates  tend  to  decrease,  and,  as  a  rule,  those 
countries  having  the  lowest  death-rates  have  also  the* 
lowest  birth-rates.  In  Europe  the  lowest  birth-rate  is 
that  of  France,  the  highest  those  of  Servia  and  Rou- 
mania.  The  lowest  death-rates  are  in  Sweden  and 
Norway;  the  highest  in  Russia  and  Spain.  The 
downward  tendency  of  the  birth  and  death-rates  is 
best  shown  by  diagrams  prepared  by  the  French  Gov- 
ernment, and  it  is  probable  that  the  downward  ten- 
dency is  actually  steeper  than  the  diagrams  show  be- 
cause both  births  and  deaths  are  more  accurately 
registered  than  formerly." 

But  these  statements  are  by  no  means  necessarily  in- 
compatible with  steady  increase  of  population,  which, 
of  course,  increases  so  long  as  the  birth-rate  exceeds 
the  death-rate.  I  quote  a  few  figures  from  the  Science 
Year  Book  of  1908 : 

In  1890  the  total  population  of  the  world  was  esti- 
mated at  1,487,900,000. 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          85 

Aryan  (Europe,  Persia,  India,  etc.)    ..  545,000,000 

Mongolian  (N.  and  E.  Asia)       . .      . .  630,000,000 

Semitic  (N.  Africa)              65,000,000 

Negro    (C.    Africa)              150,000,000 

Malay  and  Polynesian         ...     . .      . .  35,000,000 

American   Indian                  . .,    ,.-.,     ..  15,000,000 

The  total  figure  now  must  be  something  like  six- 
teen hundred  millions  at  least. 

Density  of  population,  in  so  far  as  it  means  what  is 
commonly  called  over-crowding,  is  an  important  factor 
in  the  death-rate,  and  has  a  most  inimical  influence 
upon  race-culture,  in  virtue  of  the  opportunity  afforded 
to  the  racial  poisons — syphilis,  alcohol,  etc.  Thus 
Sweden  has  the  lowest  death-rate  in  Europe,  and  has 
much  the  least  density  of  population  —  only  29  per 
square  mile  as  compared  with  our  own  341.  If  now 
the  fact  of  the  increase  of  population,  with  all  that 
it  means  and  will  mean,  may  be  taken  as  dealt  with 
and  accepted,  there  will  be  no  danger  of  leading  the 
reader  to  false  conclusions  if  we  insist  upon  the  fall 
of  the  birth-rate,  which  in  Great  Britain  in  1908  was 
the  lowest  on  record.  The  death-rate,  however,  per- 
sistently falls  also.  The  reader  who  thinks  that  the 
birth-rate  alone  determines  the  increase  of  population, 
and  those  who  believed  in  polygamy  on  the  ground 
that  it  necessarily  makes  for  the  rapid  multiplication 
and  therefore  strength  of  a  nation,  should  compare 
the  death-rate  of  London,  which  is  under  16,  with 
that  of  Bombay,  which  is  just  under  79.  It  is  as- 
serted that  in  many  large  Indian  cities  the  infant  mor- 


86       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

tality  approaches  one-half  of  all  the  children  born. 
What  it  amounts  to  in  such  cities  as  Canton  and  Pekin 
we  can  only  surmise  with  horror. 

Notwithstanding  the  persistent  fall  in  the  birth-rate 
of  London  the  rate  of  increase  in  population  remains 
stupendous,  according  to  the  calculations  of  Mr.  Cot- 
trell,  which  may  be  quoted  from  the  Science  Year  Book 
of  1908.  He  estimates  the  population  of  Greater 
London  1910  at  about  jy2  millions  and  in  1920  at 
well  over  8j/2  millions  —  the  falling  birth-rate  not- 
withstanding. 

The  increase  of  population  of  five  great  countries 
may  be  briefly  noted  here.  In  all,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Russia,  the  birth-rate  is  rapidly  falling. 
In  the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  population 
of 

Russia   (in  Europe)  . ...  rose  from  38  to  105,000,000 

France             . .          . .,     "  "      26  "  38,000,000 

Germany         . .          . .  23  '  55,000,000 

Great  Britain             . .,  15  '  40,000,000 

United  States             . .,    "  "        5  "  75,000,000 

These  are  merely  approximate  figures  but  accurate 
enough  to  be  of  value.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed 
out  that  immigration  accounts  for  the  disproportionate 
increase  of  population  in  the  United  States.  But  it 
may  be  added  that  the  imminent  arrest  or  control  of 
this  immigration  will  assuredly  have  the  most  serious 
and  pressing  consequences  for  Europe.  Plainly  it 
must  hasten  the  coming  of  national  eugenics. 

THE  CASE  OF  GERMANY. — Especial  interest  and  im- 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN         87 

portance  attach  for  many  reasons  to  the  case  of  Ger- 
many in  this  connection,  and,  as  might  be  expected, 
many  precise  facts  are  available.  Here  I  shall  avail 
myself  freely  of  the  paper  contributed  by  Dr.  Sombart 
to  the  International  for  December,  1907.  In  the  first 
seven  years  of  this  century  the  population  of  Germany 
increased  almost  ten  per  cent.  The  figure  in  1870 
was  40.8  millions  and  in  1907,  61  millions.  The  pop- 
ulation is  increasing  yearly  at  the  rate  of  about  800,- 
ooo,  as  compared  with  about  half  a  million  in  the  case 
of  Great  Britain.  In  France  in  1907  the  population 
actually  declined  by  a  few  thousands.  In  regard  to 
the  growth  of  population  Germany  is  now  at  the  head 
of  all  civilized  countries,  excepting  those  cases  in 
which  immigration  has  augmented  the  number  of  in- 
habitants. Does  this  expansion  of  population  depend 
upon  an  increasing  birth-rate  or  a  diminishing  death- 
rate?  The  fact,  in  strict  parallel  with  the  biological 
generalization  already  made,  is  that  "  Germany's  pop- 
ulation is  increasing  so  swiftly  because  the  death-rate 
has  been  falling  steadily.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
period,  1870-1880,  there  were  nearly  30  deaths  per 
thousand  inhabitants,  while  in  recent  years  only  about 
20  deaths  in  every  thousand  inhabitants  have  taken 
place  each  year.  .  .  .  Notwithstanding,  the  birth- 
rate during  the  last  ten  years,  during  which  the  prin- 
cipal growth  of  population  occurs,  has  not  in  anywise 
increased  in  Germany.  Indeed,  by  careful  investiga- 
tion it  becomes  apparent  that  it  has  declined  almost 
unintermittently  for  a  generation."  The  average 
birth-rate  for  the  ten  years,  1871-1880  was  40.7  for 
1891-1900  the  average  was  37.4  Since  then  it  has 


88       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

fallen  further,  and  in  1905  the  figure  was  34,  the  low- 
est on  record.  As  Dr.  Sombart  observes,  we  shall  only 
appreciate  these  figures  if  we  regard  them  as  an  ex- 
pression of  a  tendency  which  will  continue,  and  that 
this  is  so  he  proves.  He  observes  that  "  the  more 
highly  advanced  the  country,  the  lower  its  birth-rate. 
.  .  .  From  this  we  may  already  draw  the  conclu- 
sion that  a  diminution  of  births  is  a  concomitant  of  our 
progress  in  civilization.  Secondly,  this  is  confirmed 
by  the  fact  that  the  falling  off  in  the  birth-rate  must 
'be  attributed  largely  to  the  big  cities.  ...  As  a 
third  statistical  argument  that  the  birth-rate  declines 
with  the  advance  of  civilization,  the  fact  may  be  cited 
that  in  the  quarters  of  the  well-to-do  still  fewer  chil- 
dren are  born  than  in  those  of  the  poor."  (In  London, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  birth-rate  is  highest  in  Stepney 
and  lowest  in  Hampstead.) 

Dr.  Sombart  finally  points  out  what  must  never  be 
forgotten  —  that  an  increase  in  population,  dependent 
upon  a  fall  in  the  death-rate,  whilst  the  birth-rate  also 
falls,  is  necessarily  self-limited.  The  decrease  of  the 
death-rate  is  limited  by  definite  natural  age-limits,  and 
"  this  indicates  that  the  increase  of  population  in 
Germany  is  gradually  entering  upon  a  period  of  less 
activity,  and  will  perhaps  quite  cease  within  a  con- 
ceivable period  unless  other  causes  operate  in  the  op- 
posite direction." 

THE  YELLOW  PERIL. —  The  facts  regarding  the  yel- 
low races  are  extremely  difficult  to  ascertain.  It  ap- 
pears, however,  that  the  birth-rate  in  Japan  has  almost 
doubled  in  27  years  —  rising  from  17.1  to  31.  (I 
doubt  the  accuracy  of  the  earlier  figure.)  In  China 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          89 

the  population  is  largely  controlled  by  infanticide,  but 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  main  contention  of  Pear- 
son was  correct,  and  that  the  yellow  races  are  multi- 
plying much  more  rapidly  than  the  white  races.  It 
does  not  necessarily  follow,  however,  as  we  shall  see, 
that  this  means  yellow  ascendancy,  any  more  than  a 
similar  comparison  would  mean  microbic  ascendancy. 
It  is  not  quantity  but  quality  of  life  that  gives  sur- 
vival-value and  dominance.  This  disparity  between 
white  and  yellow  rates  of  increase  is  by  far  the  most 
pregnant  of  contemporary  phenomena.  In  the  present 
introductory  volume  it  can  merely  be  named.  But 
since  we  shall  not  survive  in  virtue  of  quantity,  I,  for 
one,  am  well  assured  that  the  choice  for  Western 
civilization  will  ere  long  be  the  final  one  between 
eugenics  or  extinction. 

THE  WHEAT  PROBLEM. — Meanwhile,  we  must  con- 
sider briefly  the  question  evidently  raised  by  this  fact 
of  human  multiplication.  As  an  expert  has  lately 
said,  the  rise  in  the  price  of  wheat  "  is  not  the  tran- 
sitory result  of  market  manipulation  and  '  corners/ 
forcing  prices  up  to  an  unnatural  level,  but  of  perfectly 
natural  and  irresistible  causes  which,  for  all  that,  are 
the  more  anxious  and  disquieting.  The  truth  is  we 
are  for  the  first  time  beginning  to  feel  individually  the 
effect  of  a  great  natural  process  —  the  race  which 
started  long  ago  between  the  population  of  the  world 
and  the  growth  of  the  world's  wheat  supply.  In  this 
race  the  growth  of  the  world's  population  has  been  out- 
stripping the  growth  of  its  wheat-food  production,  and 
the  consequence  has  been  a  total  growing  shortage,  in 
spite  of  the  opening  of  vast  new  areas  in  Canada  and 


90       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

the  Argentina."  In  this  connection  one  of  the  best 
papers  in  Great  Britain  —  the  Westminster  Gazette  - 
cheerfully  remarked  in  a  leading  article  that,  after  all, 
we  need  not  be  alarmed  as  to  the  difficulty  in  increasing 
the  supply  of  wheat,  since  population  would,  in  any 
case,  adapt  itself  to  the  food-supply.  This  is  true,  in- 
deed: there  will  never  be  more  human  beings  than 
there  is  food  to  feed.  But  the  question  is,  how  will 
the  population  be  kept  down?  In  a  word,  is  it  to  be 
by  the  awful  and  bloody  processes  of  Nature  or  by 
the  conscious,  provident  and  humane  methods  of  man? 

We  are  reminded  of  the  argument  advanced  by  Sir 
William  Crookes  in  his  Presidential  Address  to  the 
British  Association  in  1898.  The  distinguished  author 
has  himself  written  an  invaluable  book  on  the  subject 
which  has  been  carefully  revised  and  supplemented, 
and  must  be  read  by  the  serious  student.1  We  may 
note  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  student  of  dietetics 
that  wheat  is  and  remains,  on  physiological  examina- 
tion, what  the  proverb  suggests.  Bread  is  the  staff  of 
life,  wheat  being,  in  proportion  to  its  price,  by  far 
the  best  and  cheapest  of  all  foods. 

The  argument  of  Sir  William  Crookes  was  advanced 
exactly  a  century  after  the  publication  of  the  great 
essay  of  Malthus  which  we  must  soon  consider.  In 
the  whole  intervening  century  no  one,  capable  of  being 
heard,  had  considered  the  question.  The  relation  of 
Crookes  to  the  earlier  thinker  remains,  though  it  is 
curious  that  Malthus  was  not  mentioned  by  his  suc- 

1  The  Wheat  Problem,  by  Sir  Wm.  Crookes,  F.R.S.,  2nd  edi- 
tion, 1905.  The  Chemical  News  Office,  15,  Newcastle  St.,  Far- 
ringdon  St.,  E.C. 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          91 

cessor.  Writing  now,  a  decade  later,  I  wish  merely 
to  point  out  that  Sir  William's  argument  is  found 
valid.  He  observed  that  "  the  actual  and  potential 
wheat-producing  capacity  of  the  United  States  is  — 
and  will  be,  for  years  to  come  —  the  dominant  factor 
in  the  world's  bread-supply."  Now  the  recent  expert, 
from  whom  we  have  already  quoted,  declares  that 
"  former  great  wheat  exporting  countries  like  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  Russia  and  India,  while  their 
production  remains  as  high,  are  sending  far  less  abroad 
under  the  pressure  of  their  own  increasing  needs.  In 
this  connection  it  may  be  recorded  that  a  great  Ameri- 
can corn  expert  declares  that  in  twenty-five  years  the 
United  States  will  want  all,  or  very  nearly  all,  of  her 
wheat  production  for  herself,  and  will  have  very  little 
indeed  to  send  us."  In  1898  Sir  William  said  "  a 
permanently  higher  price  for  wheat  is,  I  fear,  a  ca- 
lamity that  ere  long  must  be  faced."  As  every  one 
knows,  this  prophecy  is  now  being  fulfilled.  Sir  Wil- 
liam declared  that  "  the  augmentation  of  the  world's 
eating  population  in  a  geometrical  ratio  "  is  a  proved 
fact.  The  phrase  means,  of  course,  simply  that  the 
yearly  increase  increases.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
wheat  supply  is  subject  to  a  yearly  increase  which 
does  not  itself  increase  —  in  other  words  the  increase 
is  in  an  arithmetical  ratio.  This,  a  century  later,  pre- 
cisely illustrates  the  principle  of  Malthus.  Sir  Wil- 
liam also  declared  that  exports  of  wheat  from  the 
United  States  are  only  of  present  interest  and  that 
"  within  a  generation  the  ever-increasing  population 
of  the  United  States  will  consume  all  the  wheat  grown 


92       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

within  its  borders,  and  will  be  driven  to  import,  and, 
like  ourselves,  will  scramble  for  the  lion's  share  of  the 
wheat  crop  of  the  world." 

Next  to  the  United  States  Russia  is  the  greatest 
wheat  exporter,  but  the  Russian  peasant  population 
increases  more  rapidly  than  any  other  in  Europe,  even 
though  it  is  inadequately  fed,  and  this  source  of  supply 
must  fail  ere  very  long.  As  Sir  William  points  out, 
the  Caucasian  civilization  is  indeed  founded  upon 
bread.  "  Other  races  vastly  superior  to  us  in  numbers, 
but  differing  widely  in  material  and  intellectual  prog- 
ress, are  eaters  of  Indian  corn,  rice,  millet  and  other 
grains;  but  none  of  these  grains  have  the  food-value, 
concentrated  health-sustaining  power  of  wheat."  As 
every  one  knows,  Sir  William's  argument  was  and 
is  that  we  must  learn  how  to  fix  the  nitrogen  of  the 
atmosphere  —  that  is  to  say,  how  to  combine  it  in 
forms  on  which  the  plant  can  feed.  "  The  fixation  of 
nitrogen  is  a  question  of  the  not  far  distant  future. 
Unless  we  can  class  it  among  certainties  to  come,  the 
great  Caucasian  race  will  cease  to  be  foremost  in  the 
world,  and  will  be  squeezed  out  of  existence  by  races 
to  whom  wheat  and  bread  is  not  the  staff  of  life." 

Sir  William  Crookes  was  himself  the  pioneer  in 
the  discovery  of  the  electric  method  of  fixing  the 
atmospheric  nitrogen,  and  now,  a  decade  after  the  de- 
livery of  his  address,  this  method  is  in  successful 
commercial  employment  in  Scandinavia.  There  is  also 
a  method  of  sowing  the  bacteria  which  are  capable  of 
fixing  nitrogen,  and  this,  according  to  some,  has  been 
already  proved  practicable.  Further,  the  Mendelians 
offer  us  the  possibility  of  new  varieties  of  wheat  hav- 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          93 

ing  more  grains  to  the  stalk  than  we  obtain  at  present. 
By  these  methods  the  output  of  the  land  devoted  to 
wheat  may  be  doubled  or  trebled,  but  it  is  evident  that 
even  then  there  will  be  an  impassable  limit.  We  have 
to  face,  indeed,  the  evident  but  unconsidered  fact  that 
there  must  be  a  maximum  possible  human  population 
for  this  Unite  earth,  whether  a  bread-eating  population 
or  any  other.  I  do  not  propose  to  speculate  regarding 
this  evident  truth.  If  human  life  is  worth  living  and 
is  the  highest  life  we  know,  we  may  desire  to  obtain 
that  maximum  population,  but  it  must  be  obtained,  and 
its  limits  observed,  by  the  humane  and  decent  processes 
which  man  is  capable  of  putting  into  practice,  and  not 
by  the  check  of  starvation. 

It  is  of  great  interest  to  the  British  reader  to  look 
at  the  question  briefly  from  his  point  of  view.  At  the 
present  time  our  wheat  production  is  no  more  than 
one-eighth  of  our  needs,  and  in  twenty-five  years, 
when  the  supply  from  the  United  States  will  probably 
have  ceased,  we  shall  require  40,000,000  quarters  of 
wheat  per  annum.  Yet  already,  in  time  of  peace,  care- 
ful observers  such  as  the  Rt.  Hon.  Charles  Booth  and 
Mr.  Seebohm  Rowntree  declared  that  thirty  per  cent  of 
our  own  population  are  living  on  the  verge  of  starva- 
tion. Our  available  supply  of  food  of  all  kinds  at  any 
moment  would  last  us  about  three  weeks.  How  many 
of  us  realize  what  a  war  would  mean  for  this  country  ? 
Yet  in  the  face  of  facts  such  as  these,  the  majority  of 
those  who  attempt  to  guide  public  opinion  are  urging 
us  to  increase  our  birth-rate  and  still  pin  their  faith 
to  quantity  rather  than  quality  of  population  as  our 
great  need. 


94       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

THE  THEORY  OF  MALTHUS. — The  reader  who  is  in- 
terested in  general  biology  will  realize,  of  course,  that 
we  are  here  back  to  the  great  argument  of  Malthus 
advanced  in  1798  in  his  Essay  on  the  Principle  of 
Population.  Malthus  was  a  great  and  sincere  thinker, 
a  high  and  true  moralist,  and  the  people  who  have 
a  vague  notion  that  his  name  has  some  connection 
with  immoral  principles  of  any  kind,  have  no  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject.  It  is  of  the  deepest  interest  for 
the  history  of  thought  to  know  that  it  was  the  work  of 
Malthus  which  suggested,  independently,  both  to 
Charles  Darwin  and  to  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
that  principle  of  natural  selection,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  and  their  choice  for  parenthood,  the  discovery 
of  which  constituted  one  of  the  great  epochs  in  the 
history  of  human  knowledge,  and  which  is  the  cardinal 
principle  underlying  the  whole  modern  conception  of 
eugenics  or  race-culture. 

Malthus  found  in  all  life  the  constant  tendency  to 
increase  beyond  the  nourishment  available.  In  a  given 
area,  not  even  the  utmost  imaginable  improvement  in 
developing  the  resources  of  the  soil  can  or  could  keep 
pace  with  the  unchecked  increase  of  population.1  This 
applies  alike  to  Great  Britain  and  to  the  whole  world. 
At  bottom,  then,  the  check  to  population  —  and  this 
is  true  of  microbes  or  men  — is  want  of  food,  notwith- 
standing that  this  is  never  the  immediate  and  obvious 
check  except  in  cases  of  actual  famine.  There  must 
therefore  be  a  "  struggle  for  existence/'  and  as  Darwin 
and  Wallace  saw,  it  follows  as  a  necessary  truth  that, 
to  use  Spencer's  terms,  the  fittest  must  survive.  The 
1  See  Chap.  III.,  The  Origin  of  Species. 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN          95 

question  is  whether  we  are  to  accept  starvation  as,  at 
bottom,  the  factor  controlling  population  (which,  in 
any  case,  must  be  and  is  controlled)  or  whether  we 
can  substitute  something  better  —  as  for  instance,  the 
moral  self-control  which  Malthus  recommended.  The 
single  precept  of  this  much  maligned  thinker  was  "  Do 
not  marry  till  you  have  a  fair  prospect  of  supporting  a 
family  "  -  a  fairly  decent  and  respectable  doctrine.  In 
the  words  of  Mr.  Kirkup,  "  the  greatest  and  highest 
moral  result  of  his  principle  is  that  it  clearly  and  em- 
phatically teaches  the  responsibility  of  parentage,  and 
it  declares  the  sin  of  those  who  bring  human  beings 
into  the  world  for  whose  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  well-being  no  satisfactory  provision  is  made." 
Who,  alas,  will  declare  that  even  after  a  century  and  a 
decade  this  great  lesson  is  yet  learnt? 

It  is  to  be  added,  first,  that  though  improvement  in 
agriculture  is  to  be  commended  on  every  conceivable 
ground,  and  though  it  may  in  some  degree  relieve 
and  postpone  the  difficulty,  it  is  infinitely  incapable 
of  abolishing  it.  Nothing  but  necessity  can  check  the 
prolificness  of  life.  To  this  doctrine,  however,  there 
is,  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  a  great  excepting  principle, 
unrecognized  by  Malthus,  discovered  by  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  of  vast  and  universal  importance. 
Secondly,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  emigration  —  a  real 
remedy  for  over-population  —  is  so  only  for  a  time. 
It  cannot  possibly  abolish  the  problem  —  short  of  the 
development  of  interplanetary  communication,  if  then ; 
and  the  observer  of  contemporary  politics  must  be  well 
aware,  as  Germany,  for  instance,  is  well  aware  already, 
that  its  effectiveness  as  a  practical  remedy  for  over- 


96       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

population  in  some  European  countries  is  already  being 
arrested  by  the  invaded  states. 

The  references  already  made  to  the  work  of  Sir 
William  Crookes  will  suffice  to  show  that  the  teaching 
of  Malthus  is  of  practical  importance  to  us  to-day,  and 
not  least  to  the  population  of  Great  Britain.  I  am 
tempted  to  quote  the  actual  case  in  this  connection  of 
a  young  student  of  biology  who  applied  for  Malthus's 
book  at  one  of  the  greatest  official  libraries  in  this 
country.  He  was  looked  at  as  a  shameless  young 
rascal,  and  the  libarian  curtly  said,  "  We  have  no  books 
of  that  kind  here."  I  commend  this  exquisite  instance 
of  misapplied  and  perfectly  ignorant  British  prudery 
to  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw :  not  even  he  could  imagine  any- 
thing to  surpass  it.  No  more  impeccably  decent  book 
than  this  of  "  Parson  Malthus  "  has  ever  been  written, 
and  I  have  no  adequate  comment  for  the  fact  that  its 
nature  and  contents  were  not  merely  wholly  unknown 
but  grossly  misimagined  by  this  responsible  official, 
and  that  it  could  not  be  obtained  in  the  great  library 
of  science  in  question.  This,  one  may  add,  was  not 
in  the  provinces  but  in  London. 

We  pass  in  the  following  chapter  to  the  momentous 
discovery  of  Herbert  Spencer  that  the  great  truth  seen 
by  Malthus  was  not  a  whole  but  a  half-truth,  and  that 
there  is  a  compensating  principle,  which  is  at  once  a 
source  of  inspiration  and  of  difficulty  to  the  eugenist. 
It  is  in  general  the  principle  that  as  life  ascends  it 
becomes  less  prolific,  and  its  consequences  are  infinitely 
more  vast  than  the  phrase  at  first  suggests.  Had  this 
principle  been  discovered  by  a  Continental  thinker  or 


THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  MAN         97 

by  a  member  of  a  British  University  instead  of  by  a 
man  who  never  passed  an  examination,  it  would  not 
now  need  the  discussion  which  we  shall  have  to  give 
it. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY 

THE  LAWS  OF  MULTIPLICATION. —  Implicit  or  explicit 
approval  of  a  falling  birth-rate  involves  opposition  to 
the  opinion  of  the  man  in  the  street,  the  general  opinion 
of  the  medical  profession,1  the  bench  of  bishops  and 
the  social  prophet  and  publicist  in  general.  Neverthe- 
less a  fall  in  the  birth-rate  is  a  factor  in  organic  prog- 
ress, and,  in  general,  the  level  of  any  species  is  in 
inverse  proportion  to  its  birth-rate,  from  bacteria  to 
the  most  civilized  classes  of  men  in  the  most  civilized 
countries  of  to-day.  But  in  truth  the  uniformed  opin- 
ion, totally  contrary  to  the  whole  history  of  life  and 
to  the  most  obvious  comparative  facts  of  the  birth-rate 
amongst  and  within  present  day  human  societies,  was 
utterly  disposed  of  forty  years  ago  in  the  closing 
chapter  of  the  greatest  contribution  yet  made  to  phil- 
osophic biology  —  Herbert  Spencer's  Principles  of 
Biology.  The  last  chapter  of  that  masterpiece  is  en- 
titled "  The  Laws  of  Multiplication."  Unfortunately 
it  has  not  been  read  by  one  in  ten  thousand  of  those 
who  think  themselves  entitled  to  hold,  and  even  to  ex- 
press, opinions  about  the  birth-rate.  Spencer's  dis- 

1  Including  even  such  an  exceptional  student  as  Dr.  George 
Newman,  who,  in  his  book  on  Infant  Mortality,  regards  a  fall- 
ing birth-rate  as  an  essential  evil,  and  actually'  declares  without 
qualification  that  the  factors  "which  lower  the  birth-rate  tend 
to  raise  the  infant  death-rate." 

98 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY      99 

co very  is  the  complementary  half-truth  to  the  discovery 
of  Malthus,  and  just  as  the  law  of  Malthus  is  pessi- 
mistic, so  the  law  of  Spencer  is  optimistic.  In  a  word, 
Malthus  assumed  —  indeed,  formally  declared  —  that 
there  was  no  natural  factor  of  an  internal  kind  tending 
to  limit  the  rate  of  vital  fertility.  Spencer  discovered 
that  there  is  such  a  factor,  which  can  and  does  limit 
and  has  been  limiting  vegetable,  animal,  and  human 
fertility  since  the  dawn  of  life. 

All  reproduction  involves  an  expenditure  of  energy 
in  some  degree  on  the  part  of  the  parent.  Now  the 
energy  available  by  any  individual  is  finite.  If  he 
expends  it  all  upon  reproduction,  he  himself,  or  she 
herself,  must  cease  to  exist.  This  happens  in  all  the 
lowest  forms  of  life,  which  multiply  by  fission  or 
simple  splitting.  The  young  bacteria  are  their  sub- 
divided parent.  At  the  other  extreme  is  the  case  of  the 
individual  who  retains  the  whole  of  his  energy  for 
his  own  development  and  life,  and  has  no  offspring 
at  all.  Such  consummate  bachelor  philosophers  as 
Kant  and  Spencer  may  be  quoted,  and  the  list  of  child- 
less men  of  genius  might  be  extended  quite  indefinitely. 
This  is  not  to  declare  this  last  state  to  be  the  ideal, 
but  merely  to  point  out  the  logical  extremes. 

Spencer's  principle  is  that  there  is  an  "  Antagonism," 
or,  as  we  may  rather  say,  an  inverse  ratio,  between 
"  Individuation  "  and  "  Genesis  " —  between  the  pro- 
portion of  energy  expended  upon  the  individual  and  the 
proportion  expended  upon  the  continuance  of  the  race. 
Thus  "  Individuation/'  meaning  all  those  processes 
which  maintain  and  expand  the  life  of  the  individual, 
and  "  Genesis,"  meaning  all  those  processes  which  in- 


ioo     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

volve  the  formation  of  new  individuals  —  are  neces- 
sarily antagonistic.  Every  higher  degree  of  individ- 
ual evolution  is  followed  by  a  lower  degree  of  race 
multiplication,  and  vice  versa.  Increase  in  bulk  (cf. 
the  elephant)  complexity  or  activity  involves  diminu- 
tion in  fertility,  and  vice  versa.  This  is  an  obvious 
a  priori  principle. 

Should  the  reader  declare  that  there  must  be  some- 
thing the  matter  with  an  asserted  principle  of  progress 
which  leads  in  theory  or  in  practice  to  the  production  of 
a  childless  generation,  and  therefore  the  end  of  all 
progress,  and  that  this  principle  suggests  that  the  most 
completely  developed  man  and  woman  cannot  be  par- 
ents —  then  I  would  join  in  the  chorus  of  fathers  and 
mothers  generally,  who  would  say  that,  in  human 
parenthood,  if  not,  indeed,  in  sub-human  parenthood, 
the  antagonism  is  reconciled  in  a  higher  unity;  that 
the  best  and  most  complete  development  of  the  in- 
dividual is  effected  only  through  parenthood,  in  due 
degree  —  as  Spencer,  himself  childless,  formally  de- 
clared. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  show  how  complete  is  the 
evidence  for  Spencer's  law,  both  from  the  side  of 
logical  necessity  and  from  the  side  of  observation.  In 
order  to  indicate  the  overwhelming  character  of  the 
evidence,  one  would  have  to  transcribe  the  whole  of 
his  long  chapter,  and  to  add  to  it  all  our  modern 
knowledge  of  human  birth-rate.  This  cannot  be  done, 
but  even  without  it  we  may  venture  to  say  that  people 
who  regard  a  falling  birth-rate  as  in  itself,  and  ob- 
viously, a  sign  of  racial  degeneration  or  immorality, 
or  approaching  weakness  or  failure  of  any  kind,  can 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVID^AI^TY^  ,:pi     , 


have  made  no  substantial  additions  to  their  knowledge 
of  the  subject  since  they  themselves  formed  items  in 
the  birth-rate. 

Spencer  goes  on  to  show,  with  profound  insight, 
that,  in  general,  greater  individuality  or,  to  put  it  in 
other  words,  the  more  highly  evolved  organism, 
"  though  less  fertile  absolutely,  is  the  more  fertile 
relatively"  The  supreme  instance  of  this  truth  is,  of 
course,  the  case  of  man,  in  whom  individuation  has 
reached  its  unprecedented  height,  who  is  absolutely  the 
least  fertile  of  all  creatures,1  and  yet  who  is  relatively 
the  most  fertile  —  unique  in  his  actual  and  persistent 
multiplication. 

THEIR  ACTION  IN  MAN. —  Within  the  human  species 
the  laws  of  multiplication  hold.  It  is  still  worth  while, 
after  half  a  century,  to  quote  Spencer's  remark  as  to 
infertility  in  women  due  to  mental  labor  carried  to 
excess  —  "  most  of  the  flat-chested  girls  who  survive 
their  high-pressure  education  are  incompetent  to  bear 
a  well-developed  infant  and  to  supply  it  with  the  nat- 
ural food  for  the  natural  period."  In  all  lands  people 
with  opened  eyes  are  rightly  urging  this  truth  upon  us 
to-day.  In  the  United  States  the  so-called  higher  A 
education  of  girls  has  been  proved  in  effect  to  sterilize 
them  —  and  these  the  flower  of  the  nation's  girlhood, 
and  therefore,  rightly,  the  very  elect  for  motherhood. 
Here  is  simply  an  instance  of  the  Spencerian  principle 
in  its  most  unfortunate  misdirection  by  man. 

Before  leaving  Spencer,  we  must  refer  briefly  to  the 
predictions,  based  upon  the  foregoing  principles,  with 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  point  out  again  the  exception  of  the 
elephant,  nor  to  explain  it. 


PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 


which  he  concluded  his  great  work.  The  further  evo- 
lution of  man,  he  declares,  must  take  mainly  the  direc- 
tion of  a  higher  intellectual  and  emotional  development. 
Hitherto,  and  even  to-day,  pressure  of  population  is 
the  original  cause  of  human  competition,  application, 
discipline,  expenditure  of  energy  —  and  one  may  add, 
the  possibility  of  continued  selection.  Excess  of 
fertility,  then,  says  Spencer,  is  the  cause  of  man's 
evolution,  but  "  man's  further  evolution  itself  necessi- 
tates a  decline  in  his  fertility."  The  future  progress 
of  civilization  will  be  accompanied  by  increased  de- 
velopment of  individuality,  emotional  and  intellectual. 
As  Spencer  observes,  this  does  not  necessarily  mean  a 
mentally  laborious  life,  for  as  mental  activity  "  grad- 
ually becomes  organic,  it  will  become  spontaneous  and 
pleasurable." 

Finally  the  necessary  antagonism  between  individ- 
uality and  parenthood  ensures  the  ultimate  attainment 
of  the  highest  form  of  the  maintenance  of  the  race  — 

" .  .  .a  form  in  which  the  amount  of  life  shall  be 
the  greatest  possible,  and  the  births  and  deaths  the 
fewest  possible." 

If  now  we  look  back  at  the  law  of  Malthus  we  shall 
realize  the  enormous  significance  of  the  law  of  Spencer. 
In  this  respect  we  have  the  advantage  over  Malthus 
that  we  are  aware,  as  he  was  not,  of  the  great  fact  of 
organic  evolution.  We  discover,  then,  that  an  actual 
consequence  of  the  pressure  of  population,  leading  as 
it  does  to  the  struggle  for  existence  and,  in  the  main, 
the  survival  of  higher  types,  is  that  the  rate  of  fertility 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY     103 

falls.  This  conception  of  the  fall  in  the  birth-rate  — 
which,  it  is  maintained,  has  been  a  great  factor  in  all 
organic  progress  —  was  entirely  absent  from  the  mind 
of  Malthus.  In  a  word,  the  unlimited  multiplication 
which  Malthus  observed  leads  to  its  own  correction. 
It  provides  abundance  of  material  for  natural  selection 
to  work  upon,  and  then  the  survival-value  of  individ- 
uation,  wherever  it  appears,  asserts  itself,  with  the 
consequence  that  the  rate  of  multiplication  declines. 
This  is  actually  to  be  observed  to-day.  Malthus  de- 
sired that  we  should  postpone  marriage  to  later  ages 
so  as  to  lower  the  birth-rate.  The  increasing  necessity 
and  demand  for  individuation  is  effecting  that  which 
Malthus  desired.  The  average  age  at  marriage  has 
been  rising  in  our  own  country  in  both  sexes  during 
the  last  thirty  years:  and  the  evidence  shows  that  as 
civilization  advances  the  age  of  marriage  becomes  later 
and  later.  Professor  Metchnikoff  has  discussed  some 
aspects  of  this  question  in  his  book,  The  Nature  of 
Man. 

THE  INTENSIVE  CULTURE  OF  LIFE. — For  every  stu- 
dent of  progress,  and  not  least  for  the  eugenist, 
Spencer's  law  is  a  warrant  of  hope  and  a  promise  of 
better  things  to  come.  It  teaches  that  in  the  develop- 
ment of  higher  —  that  is  to  say,  more  specialized  — 
that  is  to  say,  more  individualized  —  organic  types, 
Nature  is  working  already  and  has  been  working  for 
ages,  towards  the  elimination  of  the  brutal  elements  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  This  is,  of  course,  what 
every  worker  for  progress,  and  every  eugenist  in 
especial,  desires.  Spencer's  discovery  teaches  also 
that  individuality  compensates  a  species  for  loss  of 


104      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

high  fertility.  The  survival-value  of  individuation 
is  greater  than  the  survival-value  of  rapid  multipli- 
cation. The  very  fact  of  progress  is  the  replacement 
of  lower  by  higher  life,  the  supersession  of  the  quanti- 
tative by  the  qualitative  criterion  of  survival  value,  the 
increasing  dominance  of  mind  over  matter,  the  substi- 
tution of  the  intensive  for  the  merely  extensive  culti- 
vation of  life.  These  various  phrases  express,  I  be- 
lieve, various  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  great  fact, 
and  I  only  wish  it  were  possible  to  include  here  an 
exhaustive  study  of  the  conception  which  may  be  ex- 
pressed by  the  phrase  "  the  intensity  of  life  " —  as  dis- 
tinguished from  its  mere  extension.  There  is,  I  be- 
lieve, a  real  and  significant  analogy,  between  the 
introduction  of  what  is  called  intensive  cultivation  in 
agriculture,  and  the  eugenic  principle  which  seeks  to 
replace  the  extensive  by  the  intensive  cultivation  of 
human  life. 

THE  EUGENIC  DIFFICULTY. —  But  it  will  be  already 
evident  to  the  reader  that,  though  Spencer's  law  offers 
hope  and  warrant  to  the  eugenist,  it  also  poses  him  with 
a  permanent  and  ineradicable  difficulty  which  is  in- 
herent in  natural  necessity  —  viz.,  the  difficulty  that,  in 
consequence  of  the  operation  of  this  law,  those  very 
classes  or  members  of  a  society  whose  parenthood  he 
most  desires  must  be,  in  general,  the  least  fertile. 
Throughout  the  animal  world  the  lesser  fertility  of 
higher  species  is  no  real  handicap  to  them,  as  we  know ; 
but  where  the  conditions  of  selections  are  so  profoundly 
modified  as  in  human  society,  the  case  is  very  different. 
Furthermore,  amongst  mankind  individuality  has  often 
grown,  and  does  grow,  to  such  an  extent  that  parent- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY      105 

hood  disappears  altogether.  Indeed,  Spencer's  law 
expresses  itself  —  and  the  eugenist  must  qualify  his 
hopes  by  the  fact  —  in  the  practical  infertility  of 
many  1  of  the  most  highly  individualized  and  even 
unique  personalities,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  ranks  of 
what  we  call  genius.  To  this  subject  we  must  return. 

A  notable  section  in  Mr.  Gal  ton's  great  work  Inquir- 
ies into  Human  Faculty,  states  very  plainly  the  diffi- 
culty for  the  eugenist  involved  in  Spencer's  law,  under 
its  more  statistical  aspect.  What  are  the  relative  ef- 
fects of  early  and  late  marriages  ?  Mr.  Gal  ton  proves, 
mathematically,  that  in  a  very  few  generations  a  group 
of  persons  who  marry  late  will  be  simply  bred  down 
and  more  than  supplanted  by  those  who  marry  early. 
Now  no  one  will  dispute  that  the  less  individualized, 
the  lower  types,  the  more  nearly  animal,  do  in  general 
marry  earlier,  and  are  more  fertile.  Here,  then,  is  an 
anti-eugenic  tendency  in  human  society,  depending 
really  upon  Spencer's  law  and  requiring  us  to  recog- 
nize and  counteract  it  by  throwing  all  the  weight  we 
can  upon  the  side  of  progress,  which  means  increasing 
to  our  utmost  the  survival-value  and  the  effective 
fertility  of  the  higher  types. 

Much  more  space  might  be  spent  upon  this  gravest 
of  problems  for  the  eugenist  —  the  fact  that  the  very 
persons  from  whom  he  desires  to  recruit  the  future  on 
account  of  their  greater  individuality  are  also  on  that 
very  account  the  persons  who,  by  natural  necessity, 
tend  to  be  less  fertile.  The  difficulty  shows  itself  in 
the  male  sex,  but  it  shows  itself  still  more  conspic- 
uously in  the  female  sex,  where  the  proportion  of  the 

1  Mr.  Galton  believes  their  number  has  been  exaggerated. 


io6     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

individual  energy  devoted  to  the  race,  as  compared 
with  that  devoted  to  individuation,  is  necessarily  far 
higher,  and  must  so  remain  if  the  race  is  to  persist. 
Primarily,  the  body  of  woman  is  the  temple  of  life  to 
come  —  and  therefore,  as  we  shall  some  day  teach  our 
girls,  the  holy  of  holies.  Without  going  further  into 
this  matter  now,  it  may  be  suggested  that  a  cardinal 
principle  of  practical  importance  is  involved.  It  is 
that  the  individual  development  of  women,  their 
higher  education,  their  self-expression  in  works  of  art 
and  thought  and  practice,  cannot  safely  be  carried  to 
the  point  at  which  motherhood  is  compromised;  else 
the  race  in  question  will  necessarily  disappear  and  be 
replaced  by  any  race  whatsoever,  the  women  of  which 
continue  to  be  mothers.  There  are  women  of  the 
worker  bee  type  whom  this  argument  annoys  intensely. 
No  one  wants  them  to  be  mothers. 

The  proposition  that  all  progress  in  the  psychical 
world  depends  upon  individuality,  just  as  all  organic 
progress,  and  indeed,  all  organic  evolution,  depends 
upon  the  physical  individuality  which  biologists  call 
variation,  may  suggest  to  the  reader  the  importance 
which  must  attach  to  our  study  of  talent  and  genius, 
and  the  possibility  of  aiding  their  production.  Mean- 
while, we  must  look  a  little  further  at  the  general 
question  of  individuality  or  quality  versus  quantity 
from  the  international  point  of  view. 

QUANTITY  VERSUS  QUALITY. —  The  reader  will  un- 
derstand how  it  is  that  any  one  writing  from  the 
biological  standpoint  must  view  with  something  like 
contempt  the  common  assumption  that,  in  international 
competition,  mere  statistics  of  population  furnish,  as 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY     107 

such,  final  and  adequate  data  for  prophecy.  Let  us 
remind  ourselves  onca  more  that,  according  to  these 
crude  criteria,  which  were  really  superseded  untold 
aeons  ago,  the  dominance  of  the  world  must  belong  in 
the  near  future  not  to  Russia,  with  its  balance  of  more 
than  two  million  births  per  annum,  rather  than  to 
France,  with  its  approximately  stationary  population, 
but  to  the  bacteria,  the  growth  of  population  amongst 
which,  if  it  be  not  controlled  by  the  less  fertile  creature 
we  call  man,  may  be  of  simply  inexpressible  magnitude. 
But  the  world  is  not,  and  will  not  be,  ruled  by  bacteria, 
their  fertility  notwithstanding.  Indeed,  the  disease- 
producing  bacteria  have  already  had  sentence  of  death 
pronounced  upon  them  by  the  higher  intelligence  of 
man,  and  that  sentence  will  be  carried  out  within  a 
century.  Similarly  within  the  bounds  of  humanity  we 
must  recognize  the  limitations  of  mere  statistics.  The 
population  of  France,  some  forty  years  ago  con- 
sisted of  so  many  millions  of  units.  The  figure  does 
not  matter,  —  let  us  put  it  at  30,000,001.  Now  that  i, 
so  to  say,  was  called  Louis  Pasteur,  and  from  the 
point  of  view  of  statistics  or  those  who  think  they  can 
predict  history  by  counting  heads,  he  was  only  an  al- 
most infinitesimal  fraction,  about  one-thirty-millionth 
part,  of  the  French  people.  Yet,  as  Huxley  pointed 
out  long  ago,  his  mind  sufficed  to  pay  the  entire  in- 
demnity exacted  from  France  after  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian war.  This  single  unit  was  worth  more  than  a 
host  of  soldiers  of  the  merely  mechanical  kind.  Or 
take  Athens,  with  its  population  of  30,000  people, 
mostly  slaves,  and  consider  its  influence  upon  the 
world.  Or,  indeed,  go  where  you  please,  whether  to 


! 


io8     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

the  history  of  nations  or  the  history  of  religion  or 
science  or  art,  and  ask  whether  the  counting  of  heads, 
the  ordinary  census  taking  which  indeed  amounts 
merely  to  weighing  nations  by  the  ton,  is  an  adequate 
one.  In  estimating  national  capital  by  the  methods  of 
vital  statistics  alone,  we  are  in  a  far  worse  case  than 
he  would  be  who  estimated  monetary  wealth  by  num- 
bers, of  coins,  without  considering  whether  they  were 
pounds,  shillings  or  pence,  whether  they  were  genuine 
or  counterfeit.  The  illustration  is  ludicrously  inade- 
quate, as  every  illustration  must  be,  simply  because 
the  human  case  is  unique.  In  the  units  of  a  popula- 
tion, which  many  prophets  treat  as  if  they  were  all  of 
equal  value,  there  are  not  merely  differences  to  which 
the  difference  between  a  sovereign  and  a  penny  offers 
no  parallel ;  there  is  not  merely  an  enormous  quantity 
of  bogus  or  counterfeit  units,  but  there  is  a  very  large 
number  of  units  in  every  population  which,  so  far 
from  adding  to  the  value  of  the  rest,  subtract  from  it, 
are  parasitic  upon  it.  Students  of  money  will  find  no 
parallel  to  this.  Yet  in  the  face  of  facts  which  ought 
to  be  common  intellectual  property  amongst  school- 
children, we  find  many  writers,  bishops,  socialist  econ- 
omists, moralists,  schoolboy  Imperialists,  and  the  rest, 
pointing  merely  to  the  quantitative  question  of  popu- 
lation as  if  it  were  everything,  though  they  must  surely 
know  that,,  if  international  competition  were  the  high- 
est state  of  mankind,  and  if  the  work  of  Kelvin  and 
Lister  had  been  sold  at  its  real  worth  by  us  to  the  rest 
of  the  world,  those  two  men  alone,  in  their  services  to 
life,  and  in  the  power  which  they  give  us  over  life, 
would  be  equal  in  value  to,  shall  we  say,  the  lower 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY      109 

four-fifths  of  the  whole  birth-rate  during  the  last 
generation.  All  human  history  teaches,  as  all  animal 
history  teaches  in  lesser  degree,  that  quality  and  indi- 
viduality is  everything,  that  quantity  is  nothing  or  far 
worse  than  nothing  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  quantity  of 
quality:  yet  though  this  lesson  is  written  upon  every 
page  of  the  past,  the  greater  number  of  our  publicists 
and  our  public  advisers  still  implicitly  deny  it.  As  Mr. 
Crackanthorpe  put  it,  speaking  of  the  figures  for  1907, 
it  is  not  the  defective  numbers,  but  the  numbers  of  de- 
fectives, that  should  give  us  concern. 

MASS  VERSUS  MIND. —  John  Ruskin  called  Darwin 
"a  dim  comet,  wagging  its  tail  of  phosphorescent 
nothing  against  the  steadfast  stars  " —  a  description  as 
delightful  as  it  is  foolish.  Yet  the  conception  of 
eugenics,  which  is  indeed  a  necessary  deduction  from 
Darwin's  great  discovery,  finds  abundant  warrant  and 
support  in  Ruskin's  own  wonderful  writings,  and  here 
I  quote,  from  Time  and  Tide,  some  sentences  which 
still  require  to  be  read  and  remembered  by  the  major- 
ity of  our  present  advisers.  He  says : — 

"  And  the  question  of  numbers  is  wholly  immaterial,  compared 
with  that  of  character;  or  rather,  its  own  materialness  depends 
on  the  prior  determination  of  character.  Make  your  nation  con- 
sist of  knaves,  and,  as  Emerson  said  long  ago,  it  is  but  the  case 
of  any  other  vermin  —  the  more,  the  worse.  Or,  to  put  the  mat-^ 
ter  in  narrower  limits,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  final  concern  to  any 
parent  whether  he  shall  have  two  children,  or  four;  but  matter 
of  quite  final  concern  whether  those  he  has  shall,  or  shall  not, 
deserve  to  be  hanged.  .  .  .  You  have  to  consider  first,  by 
what  methods  of  land  distribution  you  can  maintain  the  greatest 
number  of  healthy  persons;  and  secondly  whether,  if,  by  any 
other  mode  of  distribution  and  relative  ethical  laws,  you  can 
raise  their  character,  while  you  diminish  their  numbers,  such 
sacrifices  should  be  made,  and  to  what  extent?  .  .  .  The 
French  and  British  public  may  and  will,  with  many  other  publics, 
be  at  last  brought  ...  to  see  farther  that  a  nation's  real 


i  io     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

strength  and  happiness  do  not  depend  upon  properties  and  ter- 
ritories, nor  on  machinery  for  their  defense,  but  on  their  getting 
such  territory  as  they  have,  well  filled  with  none  but  respectable 
persons,  which  is  a  way  of  infinitely  enlarging  one's  territory, 
feasible  to  every  potentate." 

Surely  it  is  not  necessary,  one  feels,  and  yet  one 
knows  it  is  necessary,  again  to  lay  down  propositions  of 
such  shining  truth,  and  one  wonders  whether  they 
shine  so  brightly  as  to  blind  those  who  should  see 
them:  or  what  can  conceivably  be  the  explanation  of 
such  arguments  as  those  of  the  Bishop  of  London  and 
others  who,  in  the  face  of  our  monstrous  infant  and 
child  mortality,  the  awful  pressure  of  population  and 
over-crowding  in  our  great  cities,  where  every  year  a 
larger  and  larger  proportion  of  the  population  lives, 
and  is  born  and  dies  —  plead  for  a  higher  birth-rate  on 
moral  grounds,  of  all  amazing  grounds  conceivable: 
and  those  also  who,  from  the  military  or  so-called 
Imperial  point  of  view,  regarding  men  primarily  as 
"  food  for  powder,"  in  Shakespeare's  phrase,  read  and 
quote  statistics  of  population  in  order  to  promulgate 
the  same  advice  ? 

To  the  moralist  we  need  make  no  reply  except  sim- 
ply to  name  the  infant  mortality,  which  is  at  last  com- 
ing to  be  recognized  everywhere  as,  perhaps,  the  most 
abominable  of  all  our  scandals.  To  the  militarist  I 
would  quote  the  case  of  our  ally,  Japan.  He  recalls 
the  war  between  China  and  Japan,  and  its  issue,  and 
has  some  idea,  perhaps,  of  the  population  ratio  of  those 
two  Empires.  How  was  it  that  Providence  was  on 
the  side  of  the  small  battalions?  He  recalls  also  the 
Russo-Japanese  war  and  its  issue;  and  the  population 


THE  GROWTH  OF  INDIVIDUALITY      in 

ratio  of  the  two  Empires  in  that  case.  How  many 
other  instances  does  not  military  history  afford  of  the 
truth  that  in  the  human  species  mind  is  the  master  of 
matter?  One  would  suppose  that  a  critical  historical 
inquiry  had  been  made,  proving  that  the  results  of  all 
past  wars  could  have  been  predicted  by  the  simple 
method  of  estimating  the  total  aggregate  weight  of  the 
combatant  nations  in  flesh  and  blood  and  bone !  More 
than  this,  if  the  development  of  the  art  of  warfare 
means  anything,  if  there  has  been  any  such  develop- 
ment since  the  days  of  fists  and  stones,  it  means,  as  all 
human  development  in  every  sphere  means,  the  increas- 
ing dominance  of  mind  over  matter,  character  and 
initiative  over  machinery,  dead  or  alive.  Meanwhile, 
the  estimate  of  warriors  in  terms  of  the  scale  and  the 
foot  rule  are  still  accepted  just  as  if  they  had  not  been 
rendered  obsolete  forever  with  the  passing  of  the 
"  dragons  of  the  prime." 

As  regards  the  psychical  worth  of  the  soldier,  is  it 
not  recognized,  though  too  commonly  forgotten,  when 
we  applaud  the  value  of  the  veteran  or  of  seasoned 
troops?  Physically  the  veteran  is,  on  the  average, 
inferior  to  the  younger  man.  It  is  the  psychical  that 
gives  him  his  worth,  just  as  it  was  patriotism  and 
sobriety  that  enabled  the  few  sober  Japanese  to  beat 
the  many  drunken  Russians.  It  is  safe  to  prophesy 
that,  in  all  future  war,  the  numerical  criterion,  which 
in  effect  weighs  armies  by  the  ton,  as  if  war  were 
merely  a  tug-of-war,  will  become  less  and  less  im- 
portant —  if,  indeed,  it  is  not  already  negligible : 
whilst  the  purely  psychical  qualities,  from  generalship 
and  strategy  and  hygiene  to  initiative,  judgment,  ac- 


ii2     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

curacy,  memory,  and  down  finally  to  mere  brutal  red- 
blooded  courage,  will  determine  the  issue. 

Platitude,  of  course,  but  if  true,  why  ignored? 
Why  cannot  our  military  advisers  learn,  in  this  respect, 
from  the  Navy  ?  Owing  to  the  very  nature  of  the  sea 
as  compared  with  the  land,  in  relation  to  the  merely 
physical  capacities  of  man,  a  Navy  must  be  more  in- 
telligent than  an  Army,  just  as  it  requires  more  intelli- 
gence to  make  a  boat  than  to  walk;  and  it  is  in  the 
Navy  that  the  mechanical  factor  has  been  most  com- 
pletely transferred,  so  that  the  human  machinery  is  at 
a  discount  and  the  steel  machinery  made  by  human 
mind  is  much,  whilst  the  value  of  the  psychical  in  all 
its  aspects  dominates  and  controls  the  whole.  Great 
Britain,  as  the  foremost  naval  power  in  the  world, 
should  long  ago  have  left  to  its  ultimate  fate  amongst 
other  nations  the  idea  that  quantity  —  so  many  tons 
of  soldiers  and  so  many  tons  of  sailors  —  affords  an 
estimate  of  the  warring  force  of  a  nation :  even  if  the 
whole  history  of  this  little  isle  and  the  possession  of 
our  present  Empire  did  not  teach,  as  the  history  of 
Rome  taught  and  as  the  history  of  Athens  teaches  in 
another  sphere,  that  not  mass  but  mind  makes  a  nation 
great. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

"We  cannot  but  feel  that  the  application  of  biological  results 
is  only  beginning,  and  beginning  with  a  tardiness  which  is  a  re- 
proach to  human  foresight.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  would 
pay  the  British  nation  to  put  aside  a  million  a  year  for  research 
on  eugenics,  or  the  improvement  of  the  human  breed."  (Prof. 
J.  A.  Thomson,  Heredity,  1908.) 

IT  is  evident  that  the  facts  and  principles  of  heredity 
lie  at  the  very  basis  of  eugenics  or  race-culture  in  any 
of  its  forms,  practical  or  impractical,  scientific  or  un- 
scientific. Our  continual  assumption  throughout  is 
that  like  tends  to  beget  like,  and  it  is  on  this  ground 
that  we  desire  to  make  parenthood  the  privilege  of 
those  whom  we  regard  as  inherently  the  best.  If  there 
were  no  such  thing  as  heredity  there  could  be  no  possi- 
bility of  race-culture  —  nor  indeed  should  we  be  here 
to  discuss  it.  If  a  man's  children  were  equally  likely 
to  be  acorns  or  babies  or  tadpoles,  the  living  world 
would  not  be  the  living  world  that  we  know. 

The  potency  of  heredity  is  obscured  to  uncritical 
examination  by  the  fact  that  that  which  is  inheritable 
is  that  which  was  innate,  inherent  or  germinal  in  the 
parent,  as  we  shall  shortly  see.  We,  however,  are  apt 
to  compare  the  child  with  the  parent,  who  has  perhaps 
been  much  modified  by  circumstances,  so  that  the  re- 
semblance between  father  and  child  may  seem  to  be 


ii4     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

slight.  Yet  if  we  could  bring  back  before  us  that 
father,  as  he  was,  say  at  the  age  of  two,  and  compare 
him  with  his  two  year  old  child,  we  should  perhaps  be 
astonished  by  the  resemblance.  But  we  see  the  ac- 
quirements or  acquired  characters  of  the  parent ;  make 
no  distinction  between  them  and  his  inherent  charac- 
ters; fail  to  discover  these  acquired  characters  in  his 
child ; —  and  discount  the  importance  of  heredity. 
Then,  again,  the  eugenist  may  be  utterly  confounded  if 
he  estimates  the  parental  value  of  an  individual  with- 
out reference  to  this  limitation  of  heredity.  Here  is 
a  man  of  culture  and  accomplishment;  his  children, 
then,  will  presumably  tend  to  be  cultured  and  accom- 
plished. But  every  kind  of  advantage  that  fore- 
thought and  love  and  money  can  afford  may  have  been 
showered  upon  that  man.  So  far  as  native  endow- 
ment was  concerned,  he  may  have  indeed  been  far  be- 
low mediocrity.  Now  it  is  native  endowment  alone 
that  he  can  transmit,  and  our  eugenic  estimate  of  him 
is  therefore  erroneous  and  will  lead  to  disappointment. 
It  is  impossible  to  lay  too  great  stress  upon  the  truth 
that  in  all  eugenic  plans  or  demands  or  practices  we  are 
assuming  the  fact  of  inheritance,  and  that  therefore  it 
is  our  first  business  to  distinguish  absolutely  between 
that  which  tends  to  be  inherited  and  that  which  on  the 
other  hand,  is  never  inherited. 

Yet  again,  this  distinction  is  of  almost  incalculable 
social  moment  in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  process  of 
selection  actually  occurring  in  society.  This,  perhaps, 
has  not  been  adequately  recognized.  One  may  repeat 
a  former  statement  of  this  point,  which  is  cardinal  for 
the  eugenist. 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE       115 

"  Even  supposing  that  we  were  all  identical  at  birth,  yet,  since 
we  would  come  to  differ  from  one  another  in  virtue  of  different 
acquirements,  due  to  our  adaptation  to  differing  environments, 
natural  selection  would  ultimately  have  different  individuals  from 
which  to  select.  Those  who  had  made  the  most  advantageous 
acquirements,  such  as  industry  or  great  knowledge,  would  tend 
to  survive  and  prosper,  whilst  those  who  had  made  disadvanta- 
geous acquirements,  such  as  laziness  or  the  loss  of  sight  or  limbs, 
would  be  pushed  to  the  wall.  That  process,  of  course,  occurs  in 
society  at  the  present  day  to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  but  it  has 
only  immediate  and  temporary  or  contemporary  consequences. 
For  if  we  recall  the  assertion  that  acquirements  cannot  be  trans- 
mitted, we  shall  see  that  the  selection  of  those  who  have  made 
advantageous  acquirements  cannot  benefit  the  next  generation, 
since  these  acquirements  die  with  their  makers.  The  only  process 
of  natural  selection  which  can  result  in  progress  is  one  which 
consists  in  the  selection  of  favorable  .  .  .  inborn  and  there- 
fore transmissible  characters,  such  as  good  digestion,  the  musical 
sense,  exceptional  intelligence,  the  sympathetic  temperament  or 
what  not  (in  so  far  as  these  are  inborn) — the  reason  being  that 
such  are  transmissible  and  that  the  children  of  persons  so  se- 
lected will  tend  to  inherit  their  parents'  good  fortune.  There  is 
a  fictitious  way  in  which  we  speak  of  a  child  inheriting  his  fath- 
er's acquirements,  as  when  his  father  has  acquired  a  fortune ;  but 
the  child  does  much  better  to  inherit  his  father's  good  sense  or 
good  health,  which  were  characters  inborn  in  him.  Acquire- 
ments, then,  are  all  very  well  for  the  day,  but  it  is  inborn  char- 
acters that  alone  count  for  the  morrow." 1 

It  may  be  added  that  the  time  will  come  when  there 
is  a  radical  "  transvaluation,"  as  Nietzsche  would  say, 
of  the  two  fashions  in  which  a  father  "  leaves  "  some- 
thing to  his  children.  When  a  question  is  asked  on 
this  head  now-a-days,  we  mean,  foolishly  enough,  to 
inquire  how  much  money  the  father  left  his  child,  and 
we  say  of  a  man  that  he  has  "  inherited  "  a  fortune. 
This  kind  of  "  inheritance  "  may  or  may  not  be  desir- 

1  Quoted  from  the  author's  lectures  on  Individualism  and  Col- 
lectivism (Williams  and  Norgate,  1906). 


n6     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

able  as  a  social  institution,  but  we  can  see  plainly 
enough  that  it  may  and  often  does  work  in  an  anti- 
eugenic  fashion.  The  gilded  fool  is  swallowed  by  the 
maiden  whose  native  sense  would  have  rejected  such  a 
pill  without  its  coat,  and  so  the  most  pitiable  degenerate 
becomes  the  father  of  his  like.  This  point  will  be  al- 
luded to  later.  The  present  argument  is  that  when 
we  ask  what  a  father  "  left "  his  children,  we  should 
really  desire  to  learn  what  he  gave  them  when  he  was 
still  alive  and  begot  them.  These  vital,  or  mortal, 
characters  which  they  inherit  —  shall  we  say  good 
health  or  insanity  —  are  of  incalculably  more  moment 
to  them,  as  individuals  than  any  monetary  fortune,  and 
of  incalculably  more  moment  for  the  future.  Yet 
again  is  it  true  that  there  is  no  wealth  but  life,  and  the 
best  "  fortune "  or  wealth  that  you  can  leave  your 
children  is  sane  and  vigorous  life. 

THE  CASE  OF  SLUM  CHILDHOOD. —  We  have  already 
seen  that  even  in  the  slums  the  children  make  a  fresh 
start  in  a  wonderful  way,  that  their  stunted  growth, 
their  proneness  to  disease,  are  mainly  due  to  their 
environment,  which  it  is  therefore  our  duty  to  im- 
prove. This  is  in  general  true,  and  depends  evidently 
upon  the  fact  that  the  acquired  deterioration  of  the 
parents  —  e.g.,  dental  decay  —  is  not  transmitted  to 
their  children  —  poisonings  apart  —  so  that  the  chil- 
dren make  a  fresh  start  where  their  parents  did.  It 
is  necessary  to  point  this  out  again  and  again,  as  the 
present  writer  for  one  has  long  been  weary  of  doing, 
because  it  indicates  our  immediate  duty  in  this  respect, 
and  forbids  us  to  shirk  it  with  any  too-comprehensive 
phrases  about  "  national  degeneration/'  Now  who 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE       117 

could  have  predicted  that  this  plain  and  simple  truth 
would  be  regarded  by  some  people  as  constituting  a 
denial  —  on  strict  scientific  grounds,  and  as  the  very 
latest  scientific  pronouncement  —  of  the  principle  of 
heredity  ?  "  The  bubble  of  heredity  has  been  pricked," 
says  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw. 

But  popular  muddleheadedness  does  not  affect  the 
palpable  and  universal  truth  that  the  inherent  charac- 
ters of  parents  do  tend  to  be  inherited  by  their  chil- 
dren :  nor  yet  that  these  inherent  characters  differ  pro- 
foundly in  different  individuals;  nor  yet  the  eugenic 
argument,  which  is  that  for  purposes  of  parenthood, 
which  means  for  the  entire  future,  some  of  these 
should  be  taken  and  others  left. 

:<  Ye  shall  know  them  by  their  fruits.  Do  men 
gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles?  .  .  . 
Wherefore  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 
These  classical  words  surely  have  a  special  value  for 
the  eugenist.  As  we  have  said,  it  is  his  particular  ne- 
cessity, alike  in  theory  and  in  practice,  to  "  know  "  the 
real  nature,  the  innate,  inherent,  germinal  characters, 
of  the  individuals  who  may  or  may  not  be  parents :  and 
these,  as  we  have  seen,  are  frequently  obscured  by  the 
action  of  environment  —  as,  for  instance,  in  the  popu- 
lation of  the  slums  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  man  of 
factitious  culture  on  the  other  hand.  But  "  by  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  In  general,  the  children 
inherit  what  was  innate  in  their  parents,  and  in 
many  an  instance  the  surest  way  in  which  you  could 
ascertain  what  the  parent  really  was  by  nature  —  what, 
as  we  say,  Nature  "meant"  him  to  be  —  is  by  a 
study  of  his  children.  Only,  of  course,  we  must  take 


ii8     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

the  children  very  young  indeed,  before  environment 
has  made  its  mark  upon  them  also,  for  better  or  for 
worse.  Thus,  when  we  find  the  new-born  baby  of 
some  pallid,  half-starved,  stunted  mother  in  the  slums, 
to  be  healthy  and  vigorous  and  beautiful,1  by  this 
fruit  we  shall  know  what  the  mother  might  and 
should  have  been.  A  healthy  baby  goes  far  to  demon- 
strate that  the  stock  is  healthy.  This  is  one  of  the  car- 
dinal truths  which  emerge  from  the  study  of  infant 
mortality,  and  it  may  be  perhaps  permitted  to  warn 
some  students  of  race-culture  of  the  errors  into  which 
they  are  bound  to  fall  if  they  do  not  reckon  with  what 
the  student  of  infant  mortality  is  constantly  asserting : 
viz.,  that  the  babies  of  the  slums,  seen  early,  before 
ignorance  and  neglect  have  had  their  way  with  them, 
are  physically  vigorous  and  promising  in  certainly  not 
less  than  ninety  per  cent,  of  cases.  This  primarily 
demonstrates,  of  course,  the  murderous  nature  of  our 
infant  mortality;  but  it  also  demonstrates  to  the  eu- 
genist  that  these  classes  are  perhaps  not  so  unworthy 
as  he  may  fancy.  By  their  new-born  babies  ye  shall 
know  them.  It  is  under  the  influence  of  such  con- 
siderations that  the  present  writer,  for  one,  is  some- 
what chary  of  predictions  and  proposals  based  upon 
the  relative  fertility  of  different  classes  of  the  com- 
munity or  of  the  masses  as  compared  with  the  classes. 
Directly  the  eugenist  begins  to  talk  in  terms  of  social 
classes  (as  Mr.  Galton  has  never  done),  he  is  skating 
on  thin  ice,  and  if  it  lets  him  through,  he  will  find  the 

1  As  is  usually  the  case,  except  when  the  mother  or  father  is 
alcoholic  or  syphilitic. 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE        119 

remains  of  many  of  his  rash  predecessors  beneath  it.1 
In  fine,  then,  if  we  observe  the  distinction  between 
the  innate  and  the  acquired,  which  is  the  distinction 
between  the  transmissible  and  the  intransmissible,  this 
is  so  far  from  denying  the  fact  of  heredity  at  all  as 
in  reality  to  emphasize  its  potency  whilst  undoubtedly 
diminishing  its  range. 

A  CRITICISM  OF  TERMS. —  In  order  that  this  distinc- 
tion may  be  clear  and  never  forgotten,  it  is  well  to  look 
to  our  vocabulary  —  words  being  good  servants  but 
bad  masters.  We  should  certainly  have  this  vocabu- 
lary purged  altogether  of  a  certain  word  in  common 
and  uncritical  employment,  especially  by  the  medical 
profession.  This  is  the  thoroughly  misleading,  inde- 
terminate and  useless  word  "  congenital."  Not  on  one 
occasion  in  a  hundred  of  its  use  does  any  examined 
meaning  attach  to  it.  The  word  is  commonly  used 
as  the  equivalent  of  innate,  inherent,  inborn  or  germi- 
nal. Now  nothing  is  truly  innate  or  inborn  save  what 
was  present  in  the  germ.  But  with  childish  confusion 
of  thought,  we  persist  in  attaching  quite  undeserved 
importance  to  the  birth  of  those  animals  which  are 
brought  forth  "  alive  " —  as  if  a  bird's  egg  were  not 
alive.  Hence  we  speak  of  any  character  present  at 

1  If  we  make  a  diagram  of  society,  with  the  social  strata 
labeled,  and  then  proceed  to  make  a  eugenic  comment  upon  it, 
certainly  the  line  dividing  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  as  for 
parenthood,  would  not  be  horizontal,  at  any  level.  Nor  would 
it  be  vertical  —  as  if  the  proportions  of  worth  and  unworth  were 
the  same  in  all  classes.  Some  would  draw  it  diagonally,  count- 
ing most  of  the  aristocracy  good  and  most  of  the  lowest  strata 
bad:  others  would  slope  it  the  other  way.  I  should  not  venture 
to  draw  it  at  all:  there  are  individuals  good  and  bad  in  all 
classes  and  races,  and  their  relative  proportions  are  unknown, 
at  least  for  me. 


120     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

birth  as  congenital,  and  then  we  assume  that  congenital 
is  synonymous  with  inherent  or  germinal.  But  it  is 
an  irrelevant  detail  that  a  young  mammal  happens  to 
leave  its  mother  at  the  ninth  week  or  month.  During 
the  whole  period  that  it  spends  within  its  mother,  it  is 
to  be  regarded  as  an  individual  organism  with  its  own 
environment.  If  that  environment  so  affects  it  as  to 
strangle  a  limb,  the  result  is  an  acquirement,  though 
it  may  be  present  at  birth.  An  acquirement  is  an  ac- 
quirement, whether  it  be  acquired  five  minutes  or 
months  before,  or  five  minutes  or  months  after,  the 
change  of  environment  which  we  call  birth.  Thus  a 
character  may  be  congenital  —  that  is,  present  at  birth 
—  but  not  inherent  or  germinal,  not  inborn  at  the  real 
birth,  which  was  the  union  of  the  maternal  and  pa- 
ternal germ-cells  at  conception.  Such  congenital 
characters  are  really  acquirements,  and  —  poisonings 
apart  —  are  not  transmissible.  In  common  discussion 
this  distinction  is  wholly  ignored;  and  two  distinct 
things,  fundamentally  different  in  origin  and  in  po- 
tency, are  lumped  together  under  the  blessed  word 
"  congenital." 

This  word  is  equally  foolish  and  useless  in  an  op- 
posite direction.  It  constantly  leads  those  who  use  it 
to  suppose  that  the  inherent  characters  of  an  individ- 
ual are  conterminous  with  his  congenital  characters  or 
his  characters  at  birth,  and  that  thus  any  characters 
which  he  displays  at  a  later  age  are  acquired.  All  this 
comes  of  the  absurdly  delusive  significance  attached 
to  the  change  of  environment  called  birth,  and  may 
doubtless  be  traced  historically  to  the  remotest  super- 
stitions which  imagined  that  a  baby  is  not  alive  until 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE        121 

it  is  born  and  breathes,  or  that  the  soul  or  breath  or 
pneunia  or  "  vital  principle  "  is  breathed  into  it  at  the 
moment  of  birth.  We  know,  however,  that  a  man 
may  display  for  the  first  time  at  the  age  of  twenty  or 
sixty  a  character  which  was  as  truly  inherent  in  his 
constitution  as  his  nose  or  his  spinal  column  —  per- 
haps a  beard,  perhaps  a  mental  character,  perhaps  a 
disease,  or  what  not.  Now  this  was  not  congenital 
though  it  was  inherent.  But  as  long  as  the  stupid  1. 
word  "  congenital "  is  used  as  it  is,  we  shall  fail  to 
realize  that  inherent  characters  may  display  them- 
selves in  an  individual  at  any  time  after  birth  as  at 
any  time  before  birth.  Thus,  to  sum  up,  a  character 
may  be  congenital  or  rather  pre-congenital,  yet  not  in- 
herent but  acquired :  a  character  may  be  post-congen- 
ital, yet  not  acquired  but  inherent.  Now  the  all- 
important  question  as  regards  heredity  is  not  at  what 
date  in  the  history  of  an  individual  a  character  appears 
—  as,  for  instance,  before  birth  or  after  birth ;  but, 
whether  that  character  is  inherent  and  therefore  trans- 
missible and  therefore  a  possible  architect  of  the  future 
of  mankind ;  or  merely  an  acquirement,  with  which  — 
the  racial  poisons  apart  —  heredity  has  no  concern. 

It  is  suggested,  then,  that  the  word  congenital  be 
expunged  from  the  vocabulary  of  science,  or  that,  if  it 
be  retained,  some  meaning  or  other  —  any  will  do  — 
be  attached  to  it.  If  the  word  is  to  be  retained,  and  if 
it  be  agreed  to  attach  a  meaning  to  it,  probably  "  at 
birth  "  would  be  the  most  convenient.  If  this  were 
agreed  upon,  then  the  phrase  "  congenital  blindness," 

1  "  For  words  are  wise  men's  counters,  they  do  but  reckon  by 
them;  but  they  are  the  money  of  fools"  (Hobbes,  Leviathan,  Pt. 
I.  chap.  iv.). 


122     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULtURE 

now  in  common  use,  could  be  retained,  as  it  would 
then  accurately  indicate  the  nature  of  the  blindness  in 
question,  which  is  due  almost  invariably,  if  not  in- 
variably, to  an  infection  acquired  at  the  moment  of 
birth. 

Yet  further.  When  we  say  that  a  man's  intelligence 
or  length  of  limb  or  whatever  it  be  is  hereditary,  we 
mean  in  ordinary  speech  that  this  character  can  be 
traced  in  one  or  more  of  his  ancestors ;  and  that  is,  of 
course,  an  accurate  use  of  the  term.  But  Shakespeare, 
for  instance,  had  unremarkable  ancestors,  so  that  no 
one  would  say  that  his  genius  was  hereditary;  are  we, 
then,  to  say  that  it  was  acquired?  Every  one  would 
protest  at  once  that  a  poet  is  born  and  not  made  — 
than  which  there  is  certainly  no  truer  popular  saying. 
What,  then,  is  to  be  said  of  it  if  it  was  neither  hered- 
itary nor  acquired  ?  The  truth  is  that  language  is  again 
at  fault.  Shakespeare's  genius  was  of  inherent  or  ger- 
minal origin  —  the  'poet  is  born  and  not  made :  or,  more 
accurately,  the  poet  is  conceived  and  not  made,  either 
before  birth  or  after  it.  Therefore,  though  Shake- 
speare did  not  inherit  his  mother's  genius  or  his  fath- 
er's genius,  neither  of  them  having  such  a  gift  to  trans- 
mit, yet  his  genius  was  certainly  potential  either  in 
the  maternal  or  paternal  germ-cell  which  united  to 
form  him,  or  in  both;  or  at  the  least  arose  in  conse- 
quence of  that  compromise  or  rearrangement  or  settle- 
ment, shall  we  say,  which  is  in  effect  always  agreed 
upon  by  the  two  germ-cells  in  bi-parental  reproduction. 
Now  the  two  germ-cells  are  the  hereditary  material. 
They  were  given  to  Shakespeare  by  his  parents;  nay 
more,  they  made  him.  His  genius,  then,  was  heredi- 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE       123 

tary  in  an  absolutely  correct  sense  of  the  word,  yet 
not  in  the  sense  of  ordinary  speech,  nor  even  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  employed  by  Mr.  Galton  in  his 
book  on  Hereditary  Genius-  This  confusion  of  terms 
is  responsible  for  much  confusion  of  thought.  It  must 
the  more  urgently  be  cleared  up  because  of  the  dis- 
coveries in  heredity  initiated  by  the  Abbot  Mendel, 
forty  years  ago,  and  now  included  in  the  department 
of  the  science  of  heredity  which  is  called  Mendelism. 
We  learn  from  this  that  highly  definite  characters  may 
appear  in  offspring  though  there  was  no  sign  of  them 
in  either  parent.  These,  then,  are  not  hereditary  in  the 
sense  of  ordinary  speech.  Yet,  in  a  more  accurate 
sense  of  the  word  they  can  be  proved  to  be  hereditary 
-  nay  more,  the  manner  and  proportion  of  their  trans- 
mission can  be  predicted  in  the  most  exact  mathemati- 
cal terms.  These  characters  were  not  present  in  the 
parent's  body;  they  did  not  lie  open  to  view  in  the 
parent;  they  were  not  patent  in  the  parent.  They 
were  latent,  however,  they  lay  hid,  in  the  parent,  or 
rather  in  the  germ-plasm  of  which  that  parent  was  the 
host.  In  many  such  cases,  if  we  go  back  a  generation 
further  we  find  that  the  character  in  question  was 
patent  in  a  grand-parent.  A  mother's  son  may  suffer 
from  haemophilia  or  the  bleeding  disease,  yet  she  is 
not  a  "  bleeder,"  nor  is  the  boy's  father ;  but  her  father 
was  a  bleeder,  and  the  disease  is,  of  course,  hereditary 
in  her  son,  though  neither  of  his  parents  displayed  a 
trace  of  it. 

Thus  an  individual  may  inherit  or  may  have  inher- 
ent in  the  germ-cells  from  which  he  was  formed  char- 
acters which  were  not  present  in  either  parent.  They 


124     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

were,  however,  potentially  present  in  the  germ-cells  of 
which  those  parents  were  the  trustees. 

But,  the  reader  will  say,  do  we  find  in  the  case  of 
every  "  sport "  or  "  transilient  variation,"  such  as 
Shakespeare,  that  the  new  character  was,  after  all,  pres- 
ent in  some  one  or  other  of  his  ancestors  though  absent 
in  his  immediate  parents?  The  answer  is  negative, 
certainly.  But  genius,  to  take  this  case,  is  a  combina- 
tion of  qualities.  And  the  Mendelians  are  now  able 
to  call  into  existence  organisms  of  new  kinds  by  com- 
bination of  qualities  derived  from  one  parent,  or  rather 
from  one  parental  line,  with  other  qualities,  formerly 
apparently  incompatible  with  them,  derived  from  the 
other  parental  line.  Thus  Professor  Biffen  of  Cam- 
bridge has  called  into  existence  a  new  kind  of  wheat 
such  as  never  existed  before  —  a  wheat  combining  the 
quality  technically  called  "  strength/'  hitherto  lacking 
in  all  kinds  of  wheat  capable  of  being  profitably  grown 
in  Great  Britain,  with  the  power  of  yielding  a  large 
crop  and  other  good  qualities  found  in  home-grown 
wheat.  He  has  also  produced  a  wheat  which,  together 
with  other  desirable  qualities,  is  immune  from  the  dis- 
ease known  as  "  rust,"  this  immunity  having  never 
been  found  before  associated  with  the  other  good  qual- 
ities in  question.  These  advances  will  not  long  be 
limited  to  the  vegetable  world  merely.  Perhaps  it  re- 
quires no  very  great  imagination,  after  all,  to  suppose 
that  even  something  like  that  combination  of  qualities 
which  we  call  genius  may  some  day  be  produced  at  will 
in  mankind. 

Such  a  new  wheat,  then  —  I  will  not  say  such  a 
Shakespeare  —  owes  its  unique  and  unprecedented 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE       125 

properties  to  heredity,  and  yet  there  was  never  any- 
thing like  it  before.  Its  "genius"  is  not  "hered- 
itary." 

The  words  innate  and  inborn  are  harmless  and  may 
be  employed,  though  the  apparent  emphasis  on  birth  is 
rather  unfortunate.  We  mean,  however,  by  innate  or 
inborn  qualities,  qualities  which  were  potential  in  the 
germ.  The  genius  of  Shakespeare  was  innate  or  in- 
born. It  was  present  potentially  at  his  real  birth,  the 
union  of  the  parental  cells.  It  preceded  his  "  birth  " 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word :  Shakespeare,  when 
only  in  embryo,  was  a  Shakespeare  in  embryo. 

Better  still  is  the  word  inherent,  which,  of  course, 
literally  means  "  sticking  in."  By  anything  inherent 
we  mean  that  which  was  there  from  the  first  as  part 
and  parcel  of,  as  indeed  essential  to,  the  entity  to  which 
we  refer.  Now  inherent  characters  are  always  inher- 
ent in  the  accurate  sense  that  they  inhere  in  the  germ- 
cells,  which  are  the  inherited  material.  As  these 
germ-cells  make  us  or  as  we  are  made  out  of  them,  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  all  our  potentialities  whatso- 
ever, our  ultimate  fates  in  every  particular,  partly  de- 
pend upon  inheritance.1 

Nature  and  nurture  are  antithetic  terms  of  Shake- 
spearean origin  which  are  in  frequent  use  and  much 
favored  by  Mr.  Galton.  That  which  comes  by  nature 
is  the  inborn,  inherent,  or  germinal ;  and  that  is  due  to 

*It  might  be  supposed  that  the  words  "inherent"  and  "in- 
herited "  were  allied  etymologically.  This  is  not  so.  "  Inherit " 
is  derived  from  "heir,"  and  this  from  a  verb  meaning  "to 
take."  In  natural  inheritance  the  heir  inherits  what  is  inherent 
in  the  germ-cells  which  make  him.  Says  Professor  Thomson: 
"The  organization  of  the  fertilized  ovum  is  the  inheritance"— 
and  the  heir,  we  may  add. 


126     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

nurture  which  is  the  result  of  the  converse  of  the  ger- 
minal with  the  environment  —  a  man's  accent  for  in- 
stance. 

Perhaps,  in  some  ways,  germinal  is  the  most  useful 
word  of  all,  though  inherent  is  so  convenient  and  fa- 
miliar, as  well  as  being  accurate  etymologically,  that 
it  has  been  employed  throughout  this  book.  Not  only 
is  the  word  germinal  strictly  accurate,  but  also  it  sug- 
gests the  idea  of  the  germ-plasm,  and  has  the  particular 
virtue  of  avoiding  all  reference  to  the  change  of  en- 
vironment to  which  young  mammals  are  subjected  and 
which  is  called  birth. 

There  remains  the  terminological  difficulty  that,  as  I 
have  tried  to  show,  the  individual  may  display  char- 
acters which  were  potential  in  the  germ,  inherent  and 
necessarily  inherited,  though  they  did  not  appear  in 
the  parent  nor  yet  in  any  ancestor.  We  have  to  face 
the  paradox,  then,  that  in  natural  inheritance  a  parent 
can  transmit  what  he  has  not  got,  though  this  does 
not  apply  to  the  unnatural  inheritance  of  property  in 
human  society.  Now  what  word  is  there  which  shall 
indicate  the  origin  or  at  least  the  time  and  conditions 
of  origin  of  such  characters  as  these  ?  They  are  ger- 
minal, yet  they  are  —  in  some  cases  —  not  wholly 
present  in  either  of  the  germ-cells  which  united  to  form 
the  new  individual  in  question.  They  are  present 
however,  in  the  new  single  cell  from  which  this  in- 
dividual, like  every  living  organism,  takes  its  origin.1 
The  terms  "  congerminal  "  or  "  conceptional  "  might 
be  employed. 

1  Unless  indeed  it  be  an  organism  so  lowly  as  only  to  consist 
of  one  cell  throughout. 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE        127 

"  Acquired  character,"  even,  is  a  bad  term.  It  re- 
placed "  functionally-produced  modification,"  which 
was  long  employed  by  Spencer.  The  blacksmith's  bi- 
ceps answers  to  this  phrase.  It  is  this  and  other  such 
modifications  that  are  non-transmissible.  Alcoholic 
degeneration  is  not  a  "  functionally-produced  modifi- 
cation," but  it  is  an  "  acquired  character,"  as  is  lead 
poisoning.  These  do  produce  results  in  offspring  — 
naturally  enough.  If  the  older  phrase  were  still  the 
one  employed,  we  should  see  that  the  Weismannian 
argument  as  to  non-transmission  does  not  apply  to 
such  "  acquired  characters." 

The  word  "  reversion,"  also,  not  to  say  "  atavism," 
may  well  be  dropped.  The  attempted  justification  of 
its  older  meaning  by  Professor  Thomson  has  led  to  se- 
vere and  conclusive  Mendelian  criticism.  The  "  rever- 
sion "of  fancy  pigeons  to  the  blue  ancestor  is  simply 
due  to  the  coming  together  of  Mendelian  units  long 
separated.  The  "  reversion  "  of  the  feeble-minded  is 
not  reversion  but  the  result  of  poisoning  —  diversion, 
or  perversion,  if  you  like.  Primitive  man  was  not 
feeble-minded,  nor  is  the  ape.  Science  has  no  further 
use  for  the  word  as  it  is  at  present  employed. 

MATERNAL  IMPRESSIONS. —  We  are  now,  at  last, 
after  our  attempt  to  clear  up  the  vocabulary  of  hered- 
ity, in  a  position  to  consider  certain  doctrines  and 
popular  beliefs  which  bear  very  directly  upon  race- 
culture.  Realizing,  for  instance,  that  "  congenital " 
means  nothing;  realizing  as  perhaps  some  of  us  have 
not  so  clearly  realized  before,  when  exactly  it  is  that 
the  new  human  being  comes  into  existence,  we  shall 
be  prepared  to  understand  how  definite  and  indisput- 


128     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

able  are  the  denials  which  science  offers  to  certain 
popular  ideas. 

Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  interests  of  race-culture 
or,  to  be  more  particular,  in  the  interests  of  her  un- 
born baby,  the  expectant  mother  may  faithfully  follow 
the  example  of  Lucy  in  Richard  Feverel*  Does  this 
have  its  intended  effect?  The  answer  is  an  unquali- 
fied negative.  Consider  the  case.  The  baby  is  at  this 
time  already  a  baby,  though  rather  small  and  uncanny, 
floating  in  a  fluid  of  its  own  manufacture.  Its  sole 
connection  with  its  mother  is  by  means  of  its  umbilical 
cord  —  that  is  to  say,  blood  vessels,  arterial  and  ve- 
nous. There  is  no  nervous  connection  whatever :  abso- 
lutely nothing  but  the  blood-stream,  carried  along  a 
system  of  tubes.  This  blood  is  the  child's  blood, 
which  it  sends  forth  from  itself  along  the  umbilical 
cord  to  a  special  organ,  the  placenta  or  after-birth, 
half  made  by  itself  and  half  made  by  the  mother,  in 
which  the  child's  blood  travels  in  thin  vessels  so  close 
to  the  mother's  blood  that  their  contents  can  be  inter- 
changed. Yet  the  two  streams  never  actually  mix. 
The  child's  blood,  having  disposed  of  its  carbonic  acid 
and  waste-products  to  the  mother's  blood,  and  having 
received  therefrom  oxygen  and  food,  returns  so  laden 
to  the  child.  Pray  how  is  the  mother's  reading  of 
history  to  make  the  child  a  historian?  If,  after  birth, 
a  small  operation  were  performed,  so  that  some  of 
the  mother's  blood  should  run  along  an  artificial  tube 

1  The  reader  will  remember  the  chapter,  "  A  Berry  to  the  Res- 
cue." "  Says  Lucy  demurely  '  Now  you  know  why  I  read  history, 
and  that  sort  of  books  ...  I  only  read  sensible  books  and 
talk  of  serious  things  .  .  .  because  I  have  heard  say 
.  .  .  dear  Mrs.  Berry !  don't  you  understand  now  ? ' * 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE      129 

into  one  of  her  baby's  veins  the  effective  connection 
between  the  two  organisms  would  in  a  sense  be  actually 
closer  than  it  was  before  birth  when,  as  has  been  said, 
the  two  streams  are  always  kept  apart.  Should  we 
expect  such  an  operation  to  serve  the  child  for  educa- 
tion? If  the  mother  then  acquired  a  scar  should  we 
expect  it  to  give  the  child  a  similar  scar  ? 

We  see  now  why  the  learning  of  geometry  on  the 
part  of  the  mother  before  its  birth  will  not  set  her  baby 
upon  that  royal  road  to  geometry  of  which  Euclid 
rightly  denied  the  existence  —  any  more  than  after  its 
birth.  Such  a  thing  does  not  happen,  and  there  is  no 
conceivable  means  by  which  it  could  happen  —  unless 
we  are  to  call  in  telepathy.  All  maternal  hopes  and 
efforts  of  this  kind  are  utterly  misguided :  as  misguided 
as  if  the  father  entertained  similar  hopes.  Let  the  de- 
voted mother  acquaint  herself  not  with  what  historians 
are  pleased  to  call  history,  but  with  the  history  of  the 
developing  human  mind  and  body,  so  that  she  may  be 
a  fit  educator  of  her  child  when  it  is  born. 

Let  her  also  realize  that  her  blood  is  everything  to 
her  child.  It  is  food  and  air  and  organ  of  excretion. 
If  she  introduces  alcohol  into  her  blood  in  any  consid- 
erable quantity  she  is  feeding  her  child  on  poisoned 
food.  Surely  the  reader  must  see  the  distinction  be- 
tween a  case  like  this  and  the  supposed  transmission  of 
historical  knowledge  or  even  historical  aptitude  from 
mother  to  baby  by  the  diligent  perusal  of  histories. 
Yet  though  the  distinction  is  so  palpable  and  evident, 
there  are  extremists  who  believe  and  even  print  their 
beliefs  that  the  denial  of  the  one  (supposed)  possibil- 
ity, which  is  palpably  inconceivable,  logically  carries 


I3Q     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

with  it  a  denial  of  the  other  possibility,  which  is  indeed 
a  palpable  necessity.  Or,  to  state  the  criticism  in  an- 
other way,  there  are  those  who,  if  we  protest  that  the 
introduction  of  poisons  into  the  mother's  organism 
must  surely  involve  risk  to  the  child  who  is  nourished 
by  her  blood,  will  retort  "  Oh,  well,  I  suppose  you 
believe  that  if  you  learn  a  number  of  languages  before 
your  next  child  is  born,  he  or  she  will  be  a  linguist!  "J 

HEREDITARY  GENIUS. —  Mr.  Galton's  world-famous 
work  on  Hereditary  Genius  was  published  in  1869  and 
reprinted  with  a  most  valuable  additional  chapter  in 
1892.  It  has  long  been  out  of  print,  however,  and  for 
the  definite  purpose  of  attempting  to  arouse  the  read- 
er's interest  in  it  so  that  he  may  somehow  or  other 
obtain  a  copy  to  read,  I  may  here  go  over  one  or  two 
points,  chosen  to  that  end.  The  argument,  of  course, 
is  that  ability  is  hereditary.2 

This,  in  the  judgment  of  most  unbiased  people,  Mr. 
Galton  conclusively  proved:  and  we  do  not  at  all  re- 
alize to-day  how  repugnant  and  revolutionary  this  doc- 
trine appeared  to  popular  opinion  some  forty  years 
ago.  Mr.  Galton  has,  however,  followed  up  his  cita- 

1  Contrast  Mr.  Galton,  the  propounder  of  the  now  accepted 
view : — 

"  As  a  general  rule,  with  scarcely  any  exception  that  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  other  influences,  such  as  bad  nutrition  or  trans- 
mitted microbes,  the  injuries  or  habits  of  the  parents  are  found 
to  have  no  effect  on  the  natural  form  or  faculties  of  the  child." 
(Hereditary  Genius,  Prefatory  Chapter  to  the  Edition  of  1892, 
p.  xv.) 

2  In  the  later  edition  Mr.  Galton  discusses  the  question  of  the 
title,  and  says  that  if  it  could  now  be  altered,  it  should  appear 
as  Hereditary  Ability.    We  may  note  that,  as  the  author  says 
himself,  "  The  reader  will  find  a  studious  abstinence  throughout 
the  work  from  speaking  of  genius  as  a  special  quality." 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE      131 

tion  of  facts  on  more  than  one  occasion  since,1  and 
those  who  now  deny  his  view  belong  to  that  very  large 
majority  of  any  population  which  finds  itself  able  to 
pronounce  confidently  upon  the  value  of  an  author's 
work  without  the  labor,  found  necessary  by  less  for- 
tunate people,  of  reading  it. 

The  following  quotation  states  the  question  of  na- 
tional eugenics  in  final  form :  — 

"As  an  example  of  what  could  be  sought  with  advantage,  let 
us  suppose  that  we  take  a  number,  sufficient  for  statistical  pur- 
poses, of  persons  occupying  different  social  classes,  those  who 
are  the  least  efficient  in  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  grounds, 
forming  our  lowest  class,  and  those  who  are  the  most  efficient 
forming  our  highest  class.  The  question  to  be  solved  relates  to 
the  hereditary  permanence  of  the  several  classes.  What  pro- 
portion of  each  class  is  descended  from  parents  who  belong  to 
the  same  class,  and  what  proportion  is  descended  from  parents 
who  belong  to  each  of  the  other  classes?  Do  those  persons  who 
have  honorably  succeeded  in  life,  and  who  are  presumably,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  valuable  portion  of  our  human  stock,  con- 
tribute on  the  aggregate  their  fair  share  of  posterity  to  the  next 
generation?  If  not,  do  they  contribute  more  or  less  than  their 
fair  share,  and  in  what  degree?  In  other  words,  is  the  evolu- 
tion of  man  in  each  particular  country,  favorably  or  injuriously 
affected  by  its  special  form  of  civilization? 

"  Enough  is  already  known  to  make  it  certain  that  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  both  the  extreme  classes,  the  best  and  the  worst, 
falls  short  of  the  average  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  Therefore, 
the  most  prolific  class  necessarily  lies  between  the  two  extremes, 
but  at  what  intermediate  point  does  it  lie  ?  Taken  altogether,  on 
any  reasonable  principle,  are  the  natural  gifts  of  the  most  prolific 
class,  bodily,  intellectual,  and  moral,  above  or  below  the  line  of 
national  mediocrity?  If  above  that  line,  then  the  existing  con- 

1  The  reader  may  note  "  A  eugenic  investigation :  Index  to 
achievements  of  near  kinsfolk  of  some  of  the  Fellows  of  the 
Royal  Society,"  Sociological  Papers,  1904,  pp.  85-99  (Macmil- 
lan) ;  also  Noteworthy  Families  (John  Murray,  1906). 


i32      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ditions  are  favorable  to  the  improvement  of  the  race.    If  they 
are  below  that  line,  they  must  work  towards  its  degradation." 

The  main  body  of  the  book  deals  with  inquiries  in 
special  cases  —  the  judges  of  England  between  1660 
and  1865,  statesmen,  commanders,  authors,  men  of 
science,  poets,  musicians,  painters,  divines,  senior  class- 
ics of  Cambridge,  oarsmen  and  wrestlers. 

The  concluding  chapters  should  be  printed  in  gold. 
Only  one  or  two  notes  can  here  be  made.  Mr.  Galton 
believes  that  the  dark  ages  were  largely  due  to  the 
celibacy  enjoined  by  religious  orders  on  their  votar- 
ies:— 

"  Whenever  a  man  or  woman  was  possessed  of  a  gentle  nature 
that  fitted  him  or  her  to  deeds  of  charity,  to  meditation,  to  litera- 
ture or  to  art,  the  social  condition  of  the  time  was  such  that  they 
had  no  refuge  elsewhere  than  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  But 
the  Church  chose  to  preach  and  exact  celibacy,  and  the  conse- 
quence was  that  these  gentle  natures  had  no  continuance,  and 
thus,  by  a  policy  so  singularly  unwise  and  suicidal  that  I  am 
hardly  able  to  speak  of  it  without  impatience,  the  Church  bru- 
talized the  breed  of  our  forefathers.  She  acted  precisely  as  if 
she  had  aimed  at  selecting  the  rudest  portion  of  the  community 
to  be,  alone,  parents  of  future  generations.  She  practiced  the 
arts  which  breeders  would  use,  who  aimed  at  creating  ferocious, 
currish,  and  stupid  natures.  No  wonder  that  club  law  prevailed 
for  centuries  over  Europe ;  the  wonder  rather  is  that  enough  good 
remained  in  the  veins  of  Europeans  to  enable  their  race  to  rise  to 
its  present  very  moderate  level  of  natural  morality." 

Yet  further :  — 

"The  policy  of  the  religious  world  in  Europe  was  exerted  in 
another  direction,  with  hardly  less  cruel  effect  on  the  nature  of 
future  generations,  by  means  of  persecutions  which  brought 
thousands  of  the  foremost  thinkers  and  men  of  political  aptitudes 
to  the  scaffold,  or  imprisoned  them  during  a  large  part  of  their 
manhood,  or  drove  them  as  emigrants  into  other  lands.  In  every 
one  of  these  cases  the  check  upon  their  leaving  issue  was  very 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE       133 

considerable.  Hence  the  Church,  having  first  captured  all  the 
gentle  natures  and  condemned  them  to  celibacy,  made  another 
sweep  of  her  huge  nets,  this  time  fishing  in  stirring  waters,  to 
catch  those  who  were  the  most  fearless,  truth-seeking,  and  intelli- 
gent, in  their  modes  of  thought,  and  therefore  the  most  suitable 
parents  of  a  high  civilization,  and  put  a  strong  check,  if  not  a 
direct  stop,  to  their  progeny.  Those  she  reserved  on  these  oc- 
casions, to  breed  the  generations  of  the  future,  were  the  servile, 
the  indifferent,  and,  again,  the  stupid.  Thus,  as  she  — to  repeat 
my  expression  —  brutalized  human  nature  by  her  system  of  celib- 
acy applied  to  the  gentle,  she  demoralized  it  by  her  system  of 
persecution  of  the  intelligent,  the  sincere,  and  the  free.  It  is 
enough  to  make  the  blood  boil  to  think  of  the  blind  folly  that  has 
caused  the  foremost  nations  of  struggling  humanity  to  be  the 
heirs  of  such  hateful  ancestry,  and  that  has  so  bred  our  instincts 
as  to  keep  them  in  an  unnecessarily  long-continued  antagonism 
with  the  essential  requirements  of  a  steadily  advancing  civiliza- 
tion." 

For  this  final  quotation  no  apology  is  needed :  — 

"  The  best  form  of  civilization  in  respect  to  the  improvement  of 
the  race,  would  be  one  in  which  society  was  not  costly;  where 
incomes  were  chiefly  derived  from  professional  sources,  and  not 
much  through  inheritance;  where  every  lad  had  a  chance  of 
showing  his  abilities,  and,  if  highly  gifted,  was  enabled  to  achieve 
a  first-class  education  and  entrance  into  professional  life,  by  the 
liberal  help  of  the  exhibitions  and  scholarships  which  he  had 
gained  in  his  early  youth;  where  marriage  was  held  in  as  high 
honor  as  in  ancient  Jewish  times ;  where  the  pride  of  race  was 
encouraged  (of  course  I  do  not  refer  to  the  nonsensical  senti- 
ment of  the  present  day,  that  goes  under  that  name)  ;  where  the 
weak  could  find  a  welcome  and  a  refuge  in  celibate  monasteries 
or  sisterhoods,  and  lastly,  where  the  better  sort  of  emigrants  and 
refugees  from  other  lands  were  invited  and  welcomed,  and  their 
descendants  naturalized." 

THE    STUDY    OF    PSYCHICAL    INHERITANCE. —  This 

early  work  of  Mr.  Galton  has  been  followed  by  much 
more  on  the  same  lines.  Contemporary  psychology, 
however,  is  just  beginning  to  indicate  the  lines  on 


134     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

which  new  inquiry  is  needed.  The  naive  assertions 
of  the  actuary  as  to  the  inheritance  of,  say,  "  conscien- 
tiousness," are  not  useful  to  the  psychologist,  who  has 
some  idea  of  the  structure  and  history  of  that  most 
complex  social  product  we  call  conscience.  The  psy- 
chologists must  analyze  out  for  us  those  elementary 
units  of  the  mind  upon  which  experience  and  the  so- 
cial state,  education  and  suggestion  act,  to  make  hu- 
man nature  as  we  know  it.  The  reader  may  be  di- 
rected to  Dr.  McDougall's  recent  work  on  Social  Psy- 
chology—  written  at  the  present  writer's  suggestion 

—  for  an  outline  analysis  of  what  is  really  inherent, 
and  therefore  alone  transmissible,  in  the  human  mind 

—  certain  instincts  and  impulses,  together  with  native 
varieties  in  capacity  of  memory,  and  so  on.     Recently 
the  Mendelians  have  entered  this  field,  and  they  have 
the  advantage  of  realizing  the  importance  of  dealing 
with  real  primary  units.     Their  law  seems  to  apply 
to  the  musical  sense  in  man  and  to  the  brooding  in- 
stinct in  the  hen.1     The  line  of  study  here  suggested  is 
earnestly  commended  to  the  psychologists  for  their 
indispensable  help. 

EUGENICS  AND  PARTIES. —  Let  us  once  again  con- 
sider the  fashion  in  which  men  and  women  are  classi- 
fied to  the  eugenic  eye.  We  have  already  realized 
that  the  most  essential  division  of  fact  is  that  between 
those  who  will  and  those  who  will  not  be  parents. 
The  most  essential  division  of  ideal  is  of  those  who 
are  worthy  and  those  who  are  not  worthy  to  be  par- 
ents. It  is  the  object  of  eugenics  to  make  the  real  and 
the  ideal  divisions  coincide.  And  let  us  here  say  with 

1  These  researches  have  not  yet  been  published. 


HEREDITY  AND  RACE  CULTURE        135 

all  possible  force  that  before  such  classifications  as 
these  all  others  are  trivial  and  nearly  all  others  impu- 
dent. The  eugenist  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  low 
game  called  party  politics :  terms  like  socialism  and  so 
forth  mean  very  little  for  him.  He  may  or  may  not 
be  a  socialist,  but  if  he  be,  at  least  he  does  not  sub- 
scribe to  what,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  the  first  article 
in  the  creed  of  socialism  —  that  all  evil  is  of  economic 
origin;  he  knows  that  there  is  much  evil  of  germinal 
origin.  As  for  conservatism  and  liberalism,  he  might 
have  some  use  for  these  terms  if  the  creed  of  conserv- 
atism were  that  there  is  no  wealth  but  life,  which  must 
be  conserved;  and  the  creed  of  liberalism  that  life  has 
not  yet  reached  its  zenith,  and  there  must  be  liberty  for 
all  progressive  variations  of  body  and  mind  and 
thought  and  practice.  As  it  is,  all  these  things  are 
somewhat  nauseating.  If  and  when  there  is  a  think- 
ing party,  and  that  party  will  have  the  eugenist,  he  will 
doubtless  join  it.  Meanwhile  he  appeals  to  that  great 
and  growing  section  of  the  community  which  knows 
party-politics  for  the  humbug  and  sham  that  it  is,  and 
the  House  of  Commons  as  a  lethal  chamber  for  souls. 
Similarly,  the  eugenic  classification  of  mankind  cuts 
right  across  the  ordinary  social  classification.  The 
parasite  and  the  parent  of  parasites  must  be  branded, 
whether  he  be  at  the  top  or  the  bottom  of  the  social 
scale.  The  quality  of  the  germ-plasm  which  men  and 
women  carry  is  the  supremely  important  thing.  Its 
architecture  is  the  architect  of  all  empires.  Year  by 
year  we  shall  more  surely  be  able  to  infer  the  nature 
and  the  worth  of  the  germ-plasm  in  particular  cases, 
though  its  host  may  have  been  veneered  or,  on  the 


i36     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

other  hand,  repressed ;  and  year  by  year  the  basal  facts 
of  heredity  will  furnish  ever  surer  criteria  for  the  the- 
ory and  practice  of  a  New  Imperialism  which  knows, 
for  instance,  what  militarism  did  for  Rome  and  Napo- 
leon for  France,  and  which  will  some  day  sweep  all  the 
money  changers  out  of  the  Temple  of  Life.1 

1  In  the  later  chapters  of  a  former  book,  "  Health,  Strength, 
and  Happiness"  (Grant  Richards,  London;  Mitchell  Kennerley, 
New  York,  1908),  I  have  discussed  various  aspects  of  heredity 
from  the  eugenic  point  of  view  more  fully  than  has  been  possible 
here. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EDUCATION    AND    RACE    CULTURE 

"  Education  is  but  the  giving  or  withholding  of  opportunity." 
—  BATESON. 

IT  is  true  that  education  can  seem  to  accomplish  mir- 
acles ;  that  in  a  single  generation  the  results  of  an  ideal 
education  would  be  amazing.  It  is  true,  also,  that  in 
certain  epochs  of  history,  when  wise  counsels  have  pre- 
vailed, great  results  have  been  attained.  It  is  true 
that  at  present  scarcely  a  man  or  woman  amongst  us, 
if  any,  has  reached  the  full  stature  which  would  have 
been  attained  under  an  ideal  system  of  education.  It  is 
true,  finally,  that  no  system  of  race-culture  can  ignore 
education  or  be  effective  without  it.  Though  the  gen- 
eral question  of  education  is  not  the  specific  question  of 
the  present  volume,  yet  there  is  only  too  good  reason 
for  some  brief  allusion  to  the  subject  here,  especially 
since  it  bears  on  the  question  of  the  measure  of  impor- 
tance which  we  ascribe  to  heredity. 

MODERN  EDUCATION  —  THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  MIND. 
-  When  we  observe  in  such  contrasted  cases  as  those 
of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Wordsworth,  for  instance, 
that  absence  of  early  education,  especially  in  the  first 
septennium,  has  co-existed  with  the  subsequent  efflores- 
cence of  the  mightiest  genius,  we  may  almost  be  in- 
clined to  inquire  whether  genius  could  not  in  effect  be 

133 


138     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

made  to  order  even  in  the  very  next  generation  by  the 
simple  device  of  suspending  the  process  which  we  are 
pleased  to  call  education.  Doubtless  that  is  scarcely 
so,  though  every  one  who  has  any  knowledge  of  the 
subject  is  well  assured  that  mere  suspension  of  the 
present  destructive  process  might  suffice  to  produce  a 
population  that  would  wonder  at  its  ancestors. 

A  simple  analogy  will  show  the  disastrous  character 
of  the  present  process,  which  may  be  briefly  described 
as  "  education  "  by  cram  and  emetic.  It  is  as  if  you 
filled  a  child's  stomach  to  repletion  with  marbles, 
pieces  of  coal  and  similar  material  incapable  of  diges- 
tion—  the  more  worthless  the  material  the  more  ac- 
curate the  analogy:  then  applied  an  emetic  and  esti- 
mated your  success  by  the  completeness  with  which 
everything  was  returned,  more  especially  if  it  was  re- 
turned "  unchanged,"  as  the  doctors  say.  Just  so  do 
we  cram  the  child's  mental  stomach,  its  memory,  with 
a  selection  of  dead  facts  of  history  and  the  like  (at 
least  when  they  are  not  fictions)  and  then  apply  a  vio- 
lent emetic  called  an  examination  (which  like  most 
other  emetics  causes  much  depression)  and  estimate 
our  success  by  the  number  of  statements  which  the 
child  vomits  on  to  the  examination  paper  —  if  the 
reader  will  excuse  me.  Further,  if  we  are  what  we 
usually  are,  we  prefer  that  the  statements  shall  come 
back  "  unchanged  " —  showing  no  signs  of  mental  di- 
gestion. We  call  this  "  training  the  memory." 

Such  a  process  as  one  has  imagined  in  the  physical 
case  would  assuredly  ruin  the  physical  digestion  for 
life.  In  the  mental  case,  which  is  not  imaginary  but 
actual,  a  similar  result  ensues.  It  is  thus  unfair  to  the 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      139 

Anglo-Saxon  germ-plasm  to  credit  it  with  the  abun- 
dant stupidity  of  its  products.  Much  of  this  stupidity 
is  factitious  and  artificial.  We  shall  continue  to  pro- 
duce it  so  long  as  by  education  or  drawing  forth  we 
understand  intrusion  or  thrusting  in,  and  so  long  as  the 
only  drawing  forth  which  we  practice  is  by  means  of 
the  emetics  we  call  examinations.  The  present  type 
of  education  is  a  curse  to  modern  childhood  and  a 
menace  to  the  future.  The  teacher  who  cannot  tell 
whether  a  child  is  doing  well  without  formally  ex- 
amining it,  should  be  heaving  bricks,  but  such  a 
teacher  does  not  exist.  In  Berlin  they  are  now  learn- 
ing that  the  depression  caused  by  these  emetics,  for 
which  the  best  physical  parallel  is  antimony,  often 
lead  to  child  suicide  —  a  steadily-increasing  phenom- 
enon mainly  due  to  educational  over-pressure  and 
worry  about  examinations. 

Short  of  such  appalling  disasters,  however,  we  have 
to  reckon  with  the  existence  of  this  enormous  amount 
of  stupidity,  which  those  who  fortunately  escaped 
such  education  in  childhood  have  to  drag  along  with 
them  in  the  long  struggle  towards  the  stars.  This 
dead  weight  of  inertia  lamentably  retards  progress. 

Our  factitious  stupidity  is  injurious  both  in  the 
governing  and  the  governed.  As  Professor  Patrick 
Geddes  once  remarked  to  the  present  writer,  there 
are  three  kinds  of  governments:  the  government  of 
the  future  —  as  yet  only  ideal,  which  believes  that 
there  are  ideas  and  that  they  may  be  worth  acting 
upon:  the  second  is  instanced  by  the  Russian  gov- 
ernment, which  believes  that  there  are  ideas,  but 
fears  and  suppresses  them:  the  third  by  the  British 


140     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

government,  which  denies  that  there  are  ideas  at  all, 
and  prefers  the  method  of  "muddling  through" — 
to  use  a  Cabinet  Minister's  contented  phrase  —  though 
truth  is  one  and  error  infinite,  though  there  are  a 
million  ways  of  going  wrong  for  one  of  going  right. 
This  characteristic  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  any 
germinal  stupidity  of  the  ruling  classes  in  England. 
If  it  were  we  should  of  course  look  upon  the  de- 
cadence of  their  birth-rate  with  the  utmost  gratitude. 
It  is  a  factitious  product  of  their  education.  If  you 
have  been  treated  with  marbles  and  emetics  long 
enough,  you  may  begin  to  question  whether  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  nourishing  food;  if  you  have  been 
crammed  with  dead  facts,  and  then  compelled  to  dis- 
gorge them,  you  may  well  question  whether  there 
are  such  things  as  nourishing  facts  or  ideas. 

Not  less  disastrous  is  this  factitious  stupidity 
amongst  the  governed.  It  produces,  of  course,  the 
kind  of  man  with  whom  we  are  all  familiar.  Having 
at  great  labor  been  taught  to  read,  he  is  incapable  of 
reading  anything  but  rubbish.  He  never  thinks  for 
himself,  and  if  he  does  you  wish  he  had  not,  so  in- 
adequate is  his  machinery  and  so  deplorable  the  result. 
He  believes  in  politicians.  He  is,  as  we  have  said, 
so  much  dead  weight  for  the  reformer,  whose  energy 
is  diverted  from  the  discovery  of  new  truth  by  the 
need  of  directing  the  eyes  of  stupidity  to  the  old, 
though  it  shines  as  the  sun  in  his  strength. 

Therefore,  let  not  the  reader  suppose  that  in  the 
advocacy  of  eugenics  or  race-culture  we  have  be- 
come blinded  to  the  possibilities  offered  us  by  reason- 


I 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      141 

able  education  even  of  the  very  heterogeneous  mate- 
rial offered  us  by  heredity. 

THE     LIMITS     OF     EDUCATION INDIVIDUAL     AND 

RACIAL. —  Yet  it  must  be  maintained  that,  though  we 
cannot  do  without  education,  and  though  something 
infinitely  better  than  we  practice  at  present  will  be 
necessary  if  the  ideal  of  race-culture  is  ever  to  be 
realized,  yet  education  alone,  however  good,  can  never 
enable  us  to  achieve  our  end.  It  must  be  main- 
tained, in  the  first  place,  that  education  is  limited  in 
its  powers  by  the  inherent  nature  of  the  educated 
material  —  it  is  a  process  of  drawing  out,  and  you 
cannot  draw  out  what  is  not  there:  and  secondly, 
that  its  value,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  individuals  is 
concerned,  is  confined  to  the  individuals  in  question 
and  is  not  reproduced  or  maintained  in  their  children. 
Thus  education  alone  would  have  similar  material 
to  act  upon  from  age  to  age,  would  have  to  make  a 
fresh  beginning  in  each  generation,  and  its  results, 
however  good,  relatively,  would  still  be  limited  and 
finite.  We  shall  do  well,  perhaps,  to  obtain  and  retain 
an  adequate  definition  of  education.  No  true  con- 
ception of  education  was  possible,  notwithstanding  the 
derivation  of  the  word,  so  long  as  the  child's  mind 
was  likened  to  a  piece  of  "  pure  white  paper  "  for  us 
to  write  upon:  or  an  empty  box  waiting  to  be  filled. 
The  tabula  rasa  of  Locke  is,  we  now  know,  the  last 
thing  in  the  world  to  resemble  a  child's  mind.  Indeed, 
if  any  such  figure  be  demanded,  the  child's  mind  is  a 
piece  of  mosaic  —  made  of  ancestral  pieces  —  and 
education  is  the  process  of  realizing  what  is  so  given. 


142     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Or,  if  a  child's  mind  is  a  portmanteau,  to  educate  is 
not  to  pack  but  to  unpack  it.  We  understand,  at 
least,  that  education  never  can  begin  at  the  beginning, 
nor  anywhere  near  it  —  that,  as  Professor  MacCunn 
says  in  his  admirable  book,  The  Making  of  Character, 
"  the  page  of  the  youngest  life  is  so  far  from  being 
blank  that  it  bears  upon  it  characters  in  comparison 
with  which  the  faded  ink  of  palaeography  is  as  recent 
history." 

We  are  learning,  too,  though  none  but  the  very  few 
know  this,  that  the  process  by  which  the  "  faded  ink  " 
is  made  visible  must  not  be  credited  with  having  done 
the  writing:  any  more  than  the  fire  to  which  you 
hold  a  paper  written  upon  with  ink  that  fire  makes 
visible.  Still  less  do  we  realize  that  what  really 
seems  to  be  the  product  of  education  is  often  the  re- 
sult of  an  inherent  mechanism  now  developed,  which 
was  not  yet  formed  when  we  began  the  educational 
process.  One  reason  why  the  baby  cannot  walk  is 
that  it  has  not  the  nervous  apparatus.  A  child  may 
walk  at  the  first  attempt,  if  that  attempt  be  delayed 
until  the  machinery  is  developed.  A  child  may  sim- 
ilarly speak  sentences  at  the  first  attempt.  Very  com- 
monly we  start  teaching  a  child  something,  which 
after  some  years,  it  learns.  We  have  done  nothing 
but  interfere.  The  learning  is  none  of  our  doing: 
merely  the  mental  apparatus  is  now  evolved  —  and 
lo !  the  result.  At  birth  the  sucking  apparatus  is  per- 
fect. If  we  could,  doubtless  we  should  start  teaching 
the  unborn  infant  to  suck  long  before  the  machinery 
was  ready  —  and  should  applaud  ourselves  for  its 
facility  at  birth;  only  that  probably  this  facility 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE       143 

would  be  impaired  by  our  efforts,  as  many  capacities 
of  later  development  are  damaged  by  our  interference. 
What  we  understand,  or  misunderstand,  by  education 
should  begin  approximately  when  the  child  is  seven. 
The  first  seven  years  of  life  should  really  have  the 
term  of  childhood  confined  to  them,  for  there  is  a  nat- 
ural term  so  indicated.  The  growth  of  the  brain  is 
a  matter  of  the  first  seven  years  almost  wholly.  It 
grows  relatively  little  after  that  period;  and  until 
that  is  completed  the  physical  apparatus  of  mind  is 
not  ready  for  educational  interference.  Without  any 
such  interference,  and  with  merely  the  provision  of 
conditions,  physical  and  mental,  for  its  spontaneous 
development,  the  brain  of  the  seven  year  old  will 
suffice  for  surprising  things  —  so  surprising  that  if 
their  evolution  were  possible  under  any  system  of 
schooling  practiced  before  that  date,  we  should  ap- 
plaud it  as  ideal.  Probably  there  is  no  such  system 
—  much  less  any  that  will  improve  on  the  spontan- 
eous process. 

EDUCATION  THE  PROVISION  OF  AN  ENVIRONMENT — 
We  are  prepared,  then,  to  realize  the  limits  to  the 
action  of  education  upon  the  individual.  We  shall 
not  confuse  this  great  and  many-sided  thing  with  such 
of  its  factors  as  instruction  or  schooling.  It  is  not 
intrusion  but  education:  "the  guidance  of  growth/' 
to  use  Sir  James  Crichton-Browne's  phrase.  This 
guidance,  this  process  of  unpacking,  educing  or 
realizing,  is  accomplished  by  the  action  of  circum- 
stances or  the  environment.  Environment  is  a  large 
word  and  is  invariably  abused  when  it  is  used  in 
less  than  the  large  sense.  Here  it  includes,  for 


H4     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

instance,  air  and  food,  mother-love  and  the  school- 
master. I  therefore  define  education  as  the  pro- 
vision' of  an  environment.  This  definition  prepares 
us  to  understand  the  limitations  of  the  process.  If 
we  think  of  education  as  a  packing  or  cram- 
ming process,  we  shall  err  in  this  respect;  we 
shall  expect  limitless  results  from  education  pro- 
vided that  one  packs  early  and  tightly  and  care- 
fully enough.  It  is  this  erroneous  conception  which 
rules  us  and  daily  betrays  us  in  practice.  If,  how- 
ever, we  think  of  education  as  the  provision  of  an 
environment,  capable  of  creating  nothing,  but  merely 
of  causing  the  expression  or  the  repression  of  poten- 
tial characters  inherent  in  the  individual  educated, 
then  we  shall  begin  to  recast  our  methods  on  the  lines 
determined  by  this  truth.  Yet,  further,  we  shall 
begin  to  understand  the  cardinal  truth,  one  of  the 
many  platitudes  which  we  have  yet  to  appreciate, 
that  "  you  cannot  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's 


ear." 


HEREDITY  AND  ENVIRONMENT — Let  us  consider 
the  question  in  general  terms.  The  characters  of  any 
living  thing  are  determined  by  two  factors  —  heredity 
and  environment.  The  old  phrases  were  character 
and  circumstances,  but  they  were  less  than  useful 
since  character  is  modified  by  circumstances.  Now 
one  of  the  most  important  questions  in  the  world,  and 
not  the  least  for  the  eugenists,  is  as  to  the  relative 
importance  of  these  two  factors.  The  technical 
terms  may  not  be  in  our  mouths,  but  we  discuss  this 
instance  or  that  of  the  question  in  point  almost  every 
day  of  our  lives.  One  part  of  the  business  of 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      145 

philosophy  and  of  science  is  not  only  to  answer 
questions  but  to  ask  them  correctly.  This  question  is 
always  wrongly  asked,  and  therefore  cannot  be  an- 
swered, or  is  incorrectly  answered.  We  persist  in 
using  the  mathematical  idea  of  addition,  and  we  seek 
to  show  that,  say,  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  result  is  due 
to  the  innate  factor  and  thirty  per  cent,  to  the  acquired. 
But  the  truth  is  that  so  long  as  we  begin  with  this 
idea  we  may  prove  what  we  please.  If  we  keep  our 
attention  fixed  upon  the  environmental  or  educational 
factor  we  can  easily  and  correctly  demonstrate  that 
in  certain  circumstances  Mozart  would  have  been 
stone-deaf  and  Shakespeare  a  gibbering  idiot  —  hence, 
but  incorrectly,  we  argue  that  environment  is  prac- 
tically everything.  Per  contra,  we  can  easily  and  cor- 
rectly demonstrate  that  no  education  in  the  world 
could  enable  a  door-mat  or  a  cabbage  or  ourselves  to 
write  Don  Giovanni  or  Hamlet  —  hence,  but  incor- 
rectly, we  argue  that  the  material  to  be  operated  upon 
is  everything.  We  have  to  learn,  however,  that  the 
analogy  is  not  one  of  addition  but  of  multiplication. 
Neither  inheritance  nor  environment,  as  such,  gives 
anything.  The  environmental  factor  may  be  poten- 
tially one  hundred  —  an  ideal  education  —  but  the 
innate  or  inherited  factor  may  be  nothing,  as  when 
the  pupil  is  a  door-mat  or  a  fool.  The  result  then  is 
nothing.  Darwin  had  the  trombone  played  to  a 
plant,  but  he  did  not  make  a  Palestrina.  No  academy 
of  music  will  make  a  beetroot  into  a  Beethoven, 
though  I  daresay  a  well-trained  beetroot  might  write 
a  musical  comedy.  The  point  is  that  one  hundred  mul- 
tiplied by  nothing  equals  nothing.  Similarly,  the  in- 


i46     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

nate  factor  may  be  one  hundred,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
potential  genius,  but  he  may  be  brought  up  upon 
alcohol  and  curses  amongst  savages,  and  the  result 
again  is  nothing.  Keep  the  idea  of  multiplication  in 
the  mind,  and  the  facts  are  seen  rightly.  No  matter 
how  big  either  factor  be,  if  it  is  multiplied  by  nothing 
it  yields  nothing,  or  if  it  be  multiplied  by  a  fraction, 
as  in  the  ordinary  education  of  a  genius,  it  yields 
less  than  it  should.  But  in  this  controversy  people 
persist  in  assuming  that  inheritance  or  education 
gives  definitely  so  much  which  is  there  anyhow, 
whereas,  really,  it  only  supplies  a  potential  figure 
which  may  realize  infinity  or  nothing,  according  to 
what  it  is  multiplied  by.  With  all  deference,  I  sub- 
mit this  as  a  real  answer  to  these  endless  disputes. 

But  further,  granted  that  neither  factor  in  itself 
produces  any  actuality,  which  is  normally  the  weight- 
ier of  the  two  factors?  We  must  make  the  qualifica- 
tion, "  normally,"  because  such  a  thing  as  disease  or 
poison,  included  in  the  environmental  factor,  will 
dominate  the  result,  completely  overshadowing  the  im- 
portance of  whatever  heredity  gave.  Such  things 
apart,  however,  we  may  be  thoroughly  assured  that 
heredity  is  the  weightier  of  the  two  factors.  The 
more  we  study  education,  the  more  we  recognize 
its  true  nature.  Indeed  the  more  we  realize  its 
ideal,  the  more  do  we  realize  its  limitations.  The 
more  we  study  education  the  more  important  does 
heredity  appear.  If  the  reader  has  not  had  the  oppor- 
tunities of  observing  children  for  himself  let  him  re- 
fer to  such  a  book  as  Mr.  Galton's  Inquiries  into  Hu- 
man Faculty,  and  he  will  begin  to  realize  how  large 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      147 

is  the  factor  given  by  inheritance  and  how  relatively 
small  is  the  factor  given  by  education. 

EDUCATION  CAN  EDUCATE  ONLY  WHAT  HEREDITY 
GIVES. —  Heredity,  as  the  eugenist  must  never  forget, 
gives  not  actualities  but  only  potentialities.  It  de- 
pends upon  circumstances  whether  they  shall  become 
actualities.  That,  however,  we  all  know.  No  one 
supposes  that  education  is  superfluous  or  impotent. 
We  do,  however,  persistently  forget  the  converse  truth 
that  education,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  no  definite 
contribution,  but  merely  multiplies  —  or  alas,  divides 
—  the  potentialities  given  by  inheritance.  These  po- 
tentialities constitute  a  limiting  condition  which  no 
education  can  transcend.  Education  can  educate  only 
what  heredity  gives.  Long  ago  Helvetius  *  thought 
that  the  differences  between  men  were  due  to  differ- 
ences in  education.  But  it  is  not  so.  We  make,  of 
course,  the  most  ridiculous  claims  for  education. 
The  remark  wrongly  attributed  to  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, that  "  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  won  on  the 
playing-fields  of  Eton/'  is  an  instance  in  point.  Re- 
cently, when  Francis  Thompson,  the  poet,  died,  the 
local  newspaper  of  his  birthplace  said  that  it  should 
be  proud  to  have  produced  him.  We  may  laugh  at 
this  conception  of  the  genesis  of  genius,  but  we  all 
talk  in  this  fashion.  A  genius  was  educated  at  Eton, 
and  we  say  that  Eton  produced  him.  The  truth  is, 
of  course,  that  Eton  failed  to  destroy  him.  (One 
says  Eton  for  convenience,  but  the  name  of  any  ac- 
cepted school  will  do.)  If  Eton  produced  him,  why 
does  it  not  produce  thousands  like  him?  There  is 
plenty  of  material:  but  it  is  not  the  right  material. 

iAs  did  Kant. 


I48     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

We  should  cease  to  speak,  in  our  pride  for  our  own 
Alma  Mater  or  our  own  methods,  as  if  education 
created  genius  or  anything  else.  Men  are  born  un- 
equal. To  realize  the  nature  of  education  is  not  only 
to  avoid  the  popular  assumption  that  an  ideal  educa- 
tion will  do  everything  for  us,  forgetting  that  no 
amount  of  polishing  will  make  pewter  shine  like  sil- 
ver; it  is  not  only  to  send  us  back  to  the  principle  of 
selection  in  recognition  of  the  power  of  inheritance; 
it  is  not  merely  to  dispose  of  the  idea  that  men  are 
born  inherently  equal ;  but  it  is  also  to  combat  the  idea 
that  education  is  a  leveling  process.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  accentuates  the  differences  between  men. 
You  may  confuse  the  unpolished  pebble  and  the  dia- 
mond, but  not  when  education  has  done  its  utmost  for 
both.  If  education  were  a  process  of  addition  to  what 
inheritance  gives,  it  would  almost  level  men:  the  ad- 
dition of  a  large  sum  to  figures  such  as,  i,  2,  and  3, 
would  almost  obliterate  their  original  disproportion. 
But  the  analogy  is  with  multiplication,  as  I  have 
suggested:  and  the  larger  the  sum  by  which  i,  2  and 
3  are  multiplied,  the  greater  is  the  disparity  between 
the  products.  This  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  truths  of 
vast  importance  which  the  common  run  of  contem- 
porary Socialism  implicitly  denies;  though  it  is  of 
course  abundantly  recognized  by  such  a  Socialist  as 
that  master-thinker  Professor  Forel.  The  Socialist's 
panacea,  ideal  education  for  all,  is  much  to  be  desired, 
and  will  accomplish  much,  as  we  began  by  admitting; 
but  it  is  not  a  panacea.  Those  who  believe  it  to  be 
such  do  not  understand  the  nature  of  education  nor  its 
limitations.  They  should  remember  the  remark  of 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE       149 

Epictetus,  "  the  condition  and  characteristic  of  a  fool 
is  this :  he  never  expects  from  himself  profit  nor  harm, 
but  from  externals."  The  dogma  of  the  unthinking 
socialist  —  who  exists,  though  he  is  doubtless  rarer 
than  the  unthinking  individualist  —  is  that  all  evil  is 
of  economic  origin:  correct  your  economics  and  your 
education  and  you  obliterate  evil.  But  it  is  not  so. 
As  Lowell  said,  "  A  great  part  of  human  suffering 
has  its  root  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  not  in  that  of 
his  institutions."  When  by  means  of  eugenics  we  can 
give  education  the  right  materials  to  work  upon,  we 
shall  have  a  Utopia,  and  as  for  forms  of  government 
they  may  be  left  for  fools  to  contest.  Forel,  incom- 
parably the  greatest  socialist  thinker  of  the  day,  sees 
this.  He  makes  his  Utopian  predictions  not  so  much 
as  to  mere  externals,  like  clothing  and  language,  but 
as  regards  the  kind  of  man  and  woman:  and,  unlike 
some  writers,  he  entitles  himself  to  paint  these  pic- 
tures, for  in  that  great  eugenic  treatise  Die  Sexuel 
Frage,  he  tells  us  how  to  realize  them  by  pedagogic 
reform  working  upon  the  materials  provided  by  hu- 
man selection.  A  paragraph  may  be  quoted  from 
Forel  :— 

"Malgre  tout  Tenthousiasme  qu'on  doit  montrer  pour  une 
pedagogic  rationelle,  il  ne  faut  jamais  oublier  qu'elle  est  incapa- 
ble de  remplacer  la  selection.  Elle  sert  au  but  immediat  et 
rapproche,  qui  est  d'utiliser  le  mieux  possible  le  material 
humain  tel  qu'il  existe  maintenant.  Mais,  par  elle-meme,  elle 
n'ameliore  en  rien  la  qualite  des  germes  a  venir.  Elle  peut 
neanmoins,  grace  a  1'instruction  donnee  a  la  jeunesse  sur  la 
valeur  sociale  de  la  selection,  la  preparer  a  mettre  cette  derniere 
en  ceuvre." 

and  another  from  Spencer: — 


150      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

"We  are  not  among  those  who  believe  in  Lord  Palmerston's 
dogma,  that  all  children  are  born  good.  On  the  whole,  the 
opposite  dogma,  untenable  as  it  is,  seems  to  us  less  wide  of  the 
truth.  Nor  do  we  agree  with  those  who  think  that,  by  skillful 
discipline,  children  may  be  made  altogether  what  they  should  be. 
Contrariwise,  we  are  satisfied  that  though  imperfections  of  na- 
ture may  be  diminished  by  wise  management,  they  cannot  be  re- 
moved by  it.  The  notion  that  an  ideal  humanity  might  be  forth- 
with produced  by  a  perfect  system  of  education,  is  near  akin  to 
that  implied  in  the  poems  of  Shelley,  that  would  make  mankind 
give  up  their  old  institutions  and  prejudices,  all  the  evils  in  the 
world  would  at  once  disappear;  neither  notion  being  acceptable 
to  such  as  have  dispassionately  studied  human  affairs." 

RUSKIN   ON   EDUCATION  AND   INEQUALITY. Three 

great  paragraphs  may  be  quoted  from  Ruskin's  Time 
Tide:— 


".  .  .  Education  was  desired  by  the  lower  orders  because 
they  thought  it  would  make  them  upper  orders,  and  be  a  leveler 
and  effacer  of  distinctions.  They  will  be  mightily  astonished, 
when  they  really  get  it,  to  find  that  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the 
fatallest  of  all  discerners  and  enforcers  of  distinctions;  piercing, 
even  to  the  division  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  to  find  out  wherein 
your  body  and  soul  are  less,  or  greater,  than  other  bodies  and 
souls,  and  to  sign  deed  of  separation  with  unequivocal  seal. 

"  171.  Education  is,  indeed,  of  all  differences  not  divinely  ap- 
pointed, an  instant  effacer  and  reconciler.  Whatever  is  undi- 
vinely  poor,  it  will  make  rich ;  whatever  is  undivinely  maimed, 
and  halt,  and  blind,  it  will  make  whole,  and  equal,  and  seeing. 
The  blind  and  the  lame  are  to  it  as  to  David  at  the  siege  of  the 
Tower  of  the  Kings,  "hated  of  David's  soul."  But  there  are 
other  divinely-appointed  differences,  eternal  as  the  ranks  of  the 
everlasting  hills,  and  as  the  strength  of  their  ceaseless  waters. 
And  these,  education  does  not  do  away  with;  but  measures, 
manifests,  and  employs. 

"In  the  handful  of  shingle  which  you  gather  from  the  sea- 
beach,  which  the  indiscriminate  sea,  with  equality  of  fraternal 
foam,  has  only  educated  to  be,  every  one,  round,  you  will  see 
little  difference  between  the  noble  and  the  mean  stones.  But  the 
jeweler's  trenchant  education  of  them  will  tell  you  another  story. 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE       151 

Even  the  meanest  will  be  the  better  for  it,  but  the  noblest  so 
much  better  that  you  can  class  the  two  together  no  more.  The 
fair  veins  and  colors  are  all  clear  now,  and  so  stern  is  nature's 
intent  regarding  this,  that  not  only  will  the  polish  show  which  is 
best,  but  the  best  will  take  most  polish.  You  shall  not  merely  see 
they  have  more  virtue  than  the  others,  but  see  that  more  of  virtue 
more  clearly;  and  the  less  virtue  there  is,  the  more  dimly  you 
shall  see  what  there  is  of  it. 

"  172.  And  the  law  about  education,  which  is  sorrowfulest  to 
vulgar  pride,  is  this  —  that  all  its  gains  are  at  compound  interest ; 
so  that,  as  our  work  proceeds,  every  hour  throws  us  farther 
behind  the  greater  men  with  whom  we  began  on  equal  terms. 
Two  children  go  to  school  hand  in  hand,  and  spell  for  half  an 
hour  over  the  same  page.  Through  all  their  lives,  never  shall 
they  spell  from  the  same  page  more.  One  is  presently  a  page 
a-head,  two  pages,  ten  pages  —  and  evermore,  though  each  toils 
equally,  the  interval  enlarges  —  at  birth  nothing,  at  death  in- 
finite." 

So  much  for  one  relation  of  this  question  to  Social- 
ism. Quite  lately  (The  New  Age,  April  nth,  1908) 
Mr.  Havelock  Ellis  has  summed  the  matter  up  as  fol- 
lows : — 

"Education  has  been  put  at  the  beginning,  when  it  ought  to 
have  been  put  at  the  end.  It  matters  comparatively  little  what 
sort  of  education  we  give  children;  the  primary  matter  is  what 
sort  of  children  we  have  got  to  educate.  That  is  the  most 
fundamental  of  questions.  It  lies  deeper  even  than  the  great 
question  of  Socialism  versus  Individualism,  and  indeed  touches 
a  foundation  that  is  common  to  both.  The  best  organized  so- 
cial system  is  only  a  house  of  cards  if  it  cannot  be  constructed 
with  sound  individuals;  and  no  individualism  worth  the  name  is 
possible,  unless  a  sound  social  organization  permits  the  breeding 
of  individuals  who  count.  On  this  plane  Socialism  and  Individ- 
ualism move  in  the  same  circle." 

We  cannot  agree  with  Socialism  when,  as  we  think, 
it  assumes  that  all  evil  is  of  economic  or  of  educational 
origin.  The  student  of  heredity  finds  elements  of  evil 


152     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

abundant  in  poisoned  germ-plasm  and  not  absent  from 
the  best.  Surely,  surely,  the  products  of  progress  are 
not  mechanisms  but  men ;  and  surely  no  economic  sys- 
tem as  such  can  be  the  only  mechanism  worth  naming 
—  which  would  be  one  that  made  men.  The  germ- 
plasm  is  such  a  mechanism,  indeed;  and  hence  its 
quality  is  all  important. 

But  if  Socialism,  sooner  than  any  other  party,  is  go- 
ing to  identify  itself  with  the  economic  principle  of 
Ruskin  that  "  there  is  no  wealth  but  life  " ;  and  if  in 
its  discussion  of  the  conditions  of  industry  it  will  con- 
cern itself  primarily  with  the  culture  of  the  racial  life, 
which  is  the  vital  industry  of  any  people  (and  basis 
enough  for  a  New  Imperialism,  or  at  least  a  New  Pa- 
triotism, that  might  be  quite  decent)  ;  if  so,  then  it 
seems  to  me  that  we  must  look  to  the  socialists  for  sal- 
vation. But  books  which  describe  future  externals, 
books  which  assume  that  education  is  a  panacea,  for- 
getting that  education  can  educate  only  what  heredity 
gives,  turn  us  away  again  when  we  are  almost  per- 
suaded. The  economic  panacea  must  fail  (at  least  as 
a  panacea)  ;  the  educational  panacea  must  fail;  the  eu- 
genic panacea  may  not  fail. 

Education,  then,  cannot  achieve  our  ideal  of  race- 
culture.  No  matter  how  good  our  polishing,  we  must 
have  silver  and  diamonds  to  work  upon,  not  pewter 
and  pebbles.  When  we  have  the  right  material  to 
work  upon,  our  labor  will  not  be  wasted,  or  far  worse 
than  wasted,  as  it  now  too  often  is. 

EDUCATION  is  A  SISYPHEAN  TASK. —  But  the  belief 
in  education  as  in  itself  an  adequate  instrument  of 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      153 

race-culture  chiefly  depends  upon  the  popular  doctrine 
as  to  its  influence  upon  the  race.  It  is  supposed,  in  a 
word,  that  if  we  educate  the  parents,  the  child  will 
begin  where  the  parents  left  off.  This  is  the  doctrine 
of  Lamarck,  who  said  that  if  the  necks  of  the  parent 
giraffe  were  educated  or  drawn  out,  the  baby  giraffe 
would  have  this  anatomical  acquirement  transmitted 
to  it,  and,  so  to  speak,  when  it  grew  up,  would  be  able 
to  begin  feeding  on  the  leaves  of  trees  at  the  level 
where  its  parents  had  to  leave  off.  In  the  course  of 
its  life  its  own  neck  would  become  elongated  or  edu- 
cated, and  its  children  would  outstretch  both  itself  and 
their  grand-parents.  This  doctrine  of  the  transmis- 
sion of  acquired  characters  by  heredity,  as  we  have 
seen,  is,  at  the  present  day,  repudiated  by  biologists. 
It  is  generally  believed  by  the  medical  profession  and 
by  the  public,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that,  for  in- 
stance, the  skin  of  the  heel  of  every  new  baby  is  al- 
most as  thin  and  delicate  as  it  is  anywhere  else,  though 
for  unthinkable  generations  all  the  ancestors  of  that 
baby  on  both  sides  have  greatly  thickened  the  skin  of 
both  heels  by  the  act  of  walking. 

It  is  quite  evident  that,  if  the  Lamarckian  theory 
were  true,  education  would  be  a  completely  adequate 
instrument  of  race-culture,  incomparable  in  its  rapid- 
ity and  certainty.  It  would  not  reform  the  world  in 
a  single  generation  because,  as  we  have  seen,  its  re- 
sults would  be  limited  by  the  inherent  nature  of  its 
material;  but  since  those  results  would  involve  the 
vast  amelioration  of  the  material  upon  which  it 
worked  in  the  second  generation,  mankind  would  be 
little  lower  than  the  angels  in  a  century.  The  good 


154     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

habits  acquired  by  one  generation  would  be  innate  in 
the  next.  If  the  father  learned  one  language  in  ad- 
dition to  his  own,  the  child  would  start  with  the 
knowledge  of  two,  waiting  only  for  opportunity,  and 
could  accumulate  more  and  hand  them  on  to  its  child. 
"  My  father's  environment  would  be  my  heredity." 
If  we  desired  muscular  strength  we  could  in  two  gen- 
erations produce  a  race  amongst  whom  Sandow  would 
be  a  puny  weakling.  We  should  not  need  to  discuss 
any  question  of  selection  for  parenthood.  Without 
any  such  process  we  could  answer  Browning's  prayer 
and  "  elevate  the  race  at  once  " —  physically,  mentally 
and  morally. 

But  the  Lamarckian  theory  does  not  correspond 
with  facts.  The  results  of  education,  physical,  men- 
tal or  moral,  are  limited  to  the  individuals  educated. 
The  children  do  not  begin  where  the  parents  left  off, 
but  they  make  a  fresh  start  where  the  parents  did. 
Thus  even  though  we  had  and  employed  an  ideal 
method  of  education,  we  should  make  no  permanent 
improvement  by  its  means  alone  in  the  breed  of  man- 
kind, any  more  than  the  breeder  of  race-horses  could 
attain  his  end  by  the  same  means.  In  each  generation 
the  same  problem,  the  same  difficulties,  the  same  lim- 
itations inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  new  material, 
would  have  to  be  faced.  We  must  learn  from  the 
horse-breeder,  who  knows  that  the  blood  of  a  single 
horse,  Eclipse,  runs  in  the  veins  of  the  great  majority 
of  winners  since  his  time. 

It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  dispossess  the  popu- 
lar mind  of  the  Lamarckian  idea,  the  more  especially 
as  members  of  the  medical  profession,  who  are  re- 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      155 

garded  as  authorities  on  heredity,  contentedly  accept 
this  idea  themselves.  Yet  the  advocates  of  eugenics 
or  race-culture  have  to  recognize  that,  so  long  as  the 
Lamarckian  idea  obtains,  their  crusade  will  fail  to 
find  a  hearing.  We  believe  that  nothing  can  really 
be  accomplished  in  the  way  of  race-culture  until  public 
opinion  —  that  "  chaos  of  prejudices,"  as  Huxley 
called  it  —  is  marshalled  on  our  side.  But  the  popu- 
lar notion  of  heredity  is  a  most  formidable  obstacle. 
The  Lamarckian  idea  seems  to  provide  a  method  for 
the  improvement  of  a  species  which  cannot  be  sur- 
passed for  simplicity,  rapidity  and  certainty.  It  even 
excludes  the  possibility  of  mistakes.  You  cannot  go 
wrong  if  you  simply  educate  every  one  to  the  utmost. 
Doubtless  some  persons  are  more  suited  for  parent- 
hood than  others,  but  only  let  education  be  wise  and 
universal,  and  any  question  of  selection  by  marriage 
or  otherwise  will  be  superfluous.  A  thousand  diffi- 
culties offered  by  public  sentiment,  by  convention,  by 
the  churches,  by  the  large  measure  of  uncertainty 
which  attends  the  working  of  heredity,  could  be  ig- 
nored, if  race-culture  were  simply  a  matter  of  educa- 
tion. 

Nevertheless,  these  difficulties  have  to  be  faced  by 
the  eugenist.  The  popular  misconception  of  heredity 
-  instanced  by  Sir  James  Simpson's  belief,  not  inex- 
cusable sixty  years  ago,  that  the  education  of  a  future 
mother  will  enlarge  her  child's  brain  —  must  be  re- 
moved. It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the  sway  of 
the  Lamarckian  idea  will  soon  be  diminished,  and 
then,  at  last,  those  who  are  interested  in  the  future 
will  discover  that  only  by  the  process  of  selection  for 


i!56    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

parenthood,  which  has  brought  mankind  thus  far,  can 
further  progress  be  assured. 

REAL  FUNCTIONS  OF  EDUCATION  FOR  RACE-CULTURE. 
— Nevertheless  education  has  a  true  function  for  race 
culture  in  addition  to  the  obvious  fact  of  its  necessity 
in  order  to  realize  the  inherent  potentialities  of  the  in- 
dividual. One  of  its  functions  is  to  provide  a  level  of 
public  opinion  and  public  taste  such  that  the  finer 
specimens  of  each  generation  shall  receive  their  due 
reward  and  shall  not  be  crushed  out  of  existence  or 
perverted.  There  is  a  passage  in  Goethe  which  sug- 
gests the  true  function  of  education,  and  makes  us 
suspect  that,  so  far  as  many  kinds  of  genius  and  talent 
are  concerned,  our  immediate  business  is  perhaps  less 
to  endeavor  to  produce  them  by  breeding —  if  that  be 
possible  —  than  to  make  the  most  of  them  when  they 
are  vouchsafed  to  us.  Says  Goethe :  — 

"  We  admire  the  Tragedies  of  the  ancient  Greeks ;  but  to  take 
a  correct  view  of  the  case,  we  ought  to  admire  the  period  and 
the  nation  in  which  their  production  was  possible  rather  than  the 
individual  authors ;  for  though  these  pieces  differ  in  some  points 
from  each  other,  and  though  one  of  these  poets  appears  some- 
what greater  and  more  finished  than  the  other,  still,  taking  all 
things  together,  only  one  decided  character  runs  through  the 
whole. 

"This  is  the  character  of  grandeur,  fitness,  soundness,  human 
perfection,  elevated  wisdom,  sublime  thought,  pure,  strong  in- 
tuition, and  whatever  other  qualities  one  might  enumerate.  But 
when  we  find  all  these  qualities,  not  only  in  the  dramatic  works 
which  have  come  down  to  us,  but  also  in  lyrical  and  epic  works 
—  in  the  philosophers,  orators,  and  historians,  and  in  an  equally 
high  degree  in  the  works  of  plastic  art  that  have  come  down  to 
us  —  we  must  feel  convinced  that  such  qualities  did  not  merely 
belong  to  individuals,  but  were  the  current  property  of  the  nation 
and  the  whole  period." 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      157 

EDUCATION  AS  TO  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SELECTION. — 
Further,  the  hope  may  be  warranted  that,  though 
education,  as  such,  will  not  achieve  the  ideal  of  true 
race-culture,  and  though  it  has  never  hitherto  averted 
the  ultimate  failure  of  all  civilizations,  yet  the  case 
may  be  different  to-day,  in  that  our  acquired  or  tradi- 
tional progress,  transmitted  by  the  process  of  educa- 
tion accumulating  from  age  to  age  —  not  in  our  blood 
and  bone  and  brain,  but  mainly  in  books,  whereby  the 
non-transmission  of  the  results  of  education  is  cir- 
cumvented in  a  sense  —  has  reached  the  point  at  which 
the  laws  of  racial  or  inherent  progress  have  been  re- 
vealed to  us,  as  to  none  of  our  predecessors.1  Having 
the  knowledge  of  these  laws  it  is  possible  that  we  may 
avert  our  predecessors'  fate  by  putting  them  into 
force.  If  we  do  not,  we  must  ultimately  become 
"  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre."  Fifty  years  have  now 
elapsed  since  the  principle  of  natural  selection  was 
demonstrated  for  all  time  by  the  genius  of  Darwin. 
We  must  not  be  guilty  of  starting  to  tell  the  story  of 
organic  evolution  and  leaving  out  the  point.  So  long 
as  we  supposed  that  man  was  created  as  he  is,  the 
idea  of  racial  progress  was  an  absurdity.  It  is  the 
correct  thing  now-a-days  to  decry  the  possibility  of 
human  perfection.  This  possibility  is  rightly  to  be- 
decried  if  it  be  assumed  that  ideal  education  of  the 
present  material  or  anything  like  it  will  realize  per- 
fection. We  have  seen  that  it  would  not.  It  is  the 
principle  of  selection,  in  which  Darwin  has  educated 
us,  that  must  be  taught  to  all  mankind,  and  thus  edu- 

1  See  the  last  sentence  of  the  quotation  from  Forel  on  p.  149. 


158     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

cation  may  indeed  become  the  factory  of  an  effective 
race-culture. 

THE  POWER  OF  INDIVIDUAL  OPINION. —  Since  ulti- 
mately opinion  rules  the  world,  it  is  for  us  to  create 
sound  opinion.  That  is  the  purpose  of  this  book. 
But  every  individual  may  be  a  center  of  eugenic  opin- 
ion, and  the  time  has  assuredly  come  for  attempting 
to  realize  this  ideal  though  a  thousand  years  should 
pass  before  the  facts  of  heredity  are  completely  ascer- 
tained and  understood.  The  main  principles  are  of 
the  simplest  character,  and  can  be  readily  imparted 
to  a  child.  Especially  does  the  responsibility  fall 
upon  parents  and  those  who  are  in  charge  of  child- 
hood. 

The  young  people  of  the  next  and  all  succeeding 
generations  must  be  taught  the  supreme  sanctity  of 
parenthood.  The  little  boy  who  asks  what  he  is  to 
become  when  he  grows  up,  must  be  taught  that  the 
highest  profession  and  privilege  he  can  aspire  to  is 
responsible  fatherhood;  the  little  girl  may  less  fre- 
quently ask  these  questions,  the  answer  to  which  has 
been  imparted  to  her  by  her  own  Mother-Nature  —  as 
the  doll  instinct,  so  little  appreciated  or  utilized,  suffi- 
ciently demonstrates;  but  she  likewise  must  be  taught 
reverence  for  Motherhood.  As  childhood  gives  place 
to  youth,  what  may  be  called  the  eugenic  sense  must 
be  cultivated  as  a  cardinal  aspect  of  the  moral  sense 
itself;  so  that  even  personal  inclination. —  at  the  con- 
trollable and  self -controllable  stage  which  precedes 
"  head  over  ears  "  affection  —  will  wither  when  it  is 
directed  to  some  one  who,  on  any  ground,  offends  the 
educated  eugenic  sense.  There  is  here  a  field  for 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE     159 

moral  education  of  the  highest  and  most  valuable  kind, 
both  for  the  individual  and  for  the  race.  Is  there  any 
other  aspect  of  duty  which  can  claim  a  higher  warrant  ? 
Is  there  any  hitherto  so  wholly  ignored? 

The  preceding  paragraph  is  re-printed  from  a  brief 
account  of  its  objects  written  for  the  Eugenics  Educa- 
tion Society,  as  a  Society  which  amongst  other  pur- 
poses exists  "  to  further  eugenic  teaching  at  home  and 
in  the  schools  and  elsewhere."  The  difficulties  of 
teaching  this  subject  to  children  are  more  apparent 
than  real.  I  may  freely  confess  that  though  I  have 
been  speaking,  writing,  and  thinking  about  eugenics 
for  six  years,  I  did  not  realize  the  importance  of  eu- 
genic education  until  I  heard  the  views  of  some  of  the 
women  who  belong  to  this  Society,  and  even  then  I 
was  at  first  sceptical  as  to  its  practicability.  The  sub- 
ject has  been  entirely  ignored  by  the  pioneers  of  this 
matter.  But  if  we  turn  to  such  a  work  as  Forel's  mas- 
terpiece we  begin  to  realize  that  the  eugenic  education 
of  children  is  the  real  beginning  at  the  beginning,  that 
it  is  in  fact  indispensable,  and  must  be  antecedent  to 
all  legislation  in  the  direction  of  positive  eugenics, 
though  not  to  certain  forms  of  legislation  in  the  direc- 
tion of  negative  eugenics.1  In  the  earlier  chapters  of 
his  great  work  Professor  Forel  offers  the  parent  and 
the  guardian  abundant,  detailed  and  accurate  guidance 
as  to  the  lines  and  methods  of  this  teaching.  It  is 
urgently  necessary  for  both  sexes,  but  more  especially 
for  girls,  who  may  suffer  incredibly  from  the  cruel 
prudery  ordained  by  Mrs.  Grundy,  the  only  old 
woman  to  whom  the  word  "  hag  "  should  be  applied. 

ipor  definition  of  these  terms  see  p.  199  et  seq 


160     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

We  must  remove  the  reproach  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
made  nearly  fifty  years  ago  in  words  which  may  well  be 
quoted :  — 

"  The  greatest  defect  in  our  programs  of  education  is  entirely 
overlooked.  While  much  is  being  done  in  the  detailed  improve- 
ment of  our  systems  in  respect  both  of  matter  and  manner,  the 
most  pressing  desideratum,  to  prepare  the  young  for  the  duties  of 
life,  is  tacitly  admitted  to  be  the  end  which  parents  and  school- 
masters should  have  in  view;  and  happily,  the  value  of  the  things 
taught,  and  the  goodness  of  the  methods  followed  in  teaching 
them,  are  now  ostensibly  judged  by  their  fitness  to  this  end.  The 
propriety  of  substituting  for  an  exclusively  classical  training,  a 
training  in  which  the  modern  languages  shall  have  a  share,  is 
argued  on  this  ground.  The  necessity  of  increasing  the  amount 
of  science  is  urged  for  like  reasons.  But  though  some  care  is 
taken  to  fit  youth  of  both  sexes  for  society  and  citizenship,  no 
care  whatever  is  taken  to  fit  them  for  the  position  of  parents. 
While  it  is  seen  that  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  an 
elaborate  preparation  is  needed,  it  appears  to  be  thought  that  for 
the  bringing  up  of  children,  no  preparation  whatever  is  needed. 
While  many  years  are  spent  by  a  boy  in  gaining  knowledge  of 
which  the  chief  value  is  that  it  constitutes  "the  education  of  a 
gentleman  " ;  and  while  many  years  are  spent  by  a  girl  in  those 
decorative  acquirements  which  fit  her  for  evening  parties ;  not  an 
hour  is  spent  by  either  in  preparation  for  that  gravest  of  all 
responsibilities  —  the  management  of  a  family.  Is  it  that  this 
responsibility  is  but  a  remote  contingency?  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  sure  to  devolve  on  nine  out  of  ten.  Is  it  that  the  discharge 
of  it  is  easy?  Certainly  not;  of  all  functions  which  the  adult 
has  to  fulfill,  this  is  the  most  difficult.  Is  it  that  each  may  be 
trusted  by  self-instruction  to  fit  himself,  or  herself,  for  the  office 
of  parent?  No;  not  only  is  the  need  for  such  self -instruction 
unrecognized,  but  the  complexity  of  the  subject  renders  it  the 
one  of  all  others  in  which  self -instruction  is  least  likely  to  suc- 
ceed." 

THE  LINES  OF  EUGENIC  EDUCATION. — The  teaching 
of  the  main  facts  of  heredity  must  come  first  in  order 
to  the  end  of  eugenic  education.  The  vegetable  world 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE       161 

is  at  our  service  in  this  regard,  the  products  of  horti- 
culture with  their  beauty  and  grace  and  novelty  are 
illustrations  one  and  all  of  what  heredity  means  and 
what  the  due  choice  of  parents  will  effect.  There 
need  be  no  personal  allusions  at  this  stage;  the  thing 
can  be  presented  in  an  impersonal  biological  setting. 
And  as  heredity  produces  these  wonderful  results  in 
plants,  so  also  does  it  in  the  animal  world.  Number- 
less domestic  forms  are  at  our  service.  You  take  your 
children  and  your  dog  to  the  Zoological  gardens,  and 
show  the  resemblance  between  wolf  and  dog.  What 
easier,  then,  than  to  point  out  that  by  consistent  choos- 
ing for  many  generations  of  the  least  ferocious  wolves, 
you  may  make  a  domesticated  race  ?  1 

The  mind  of  any  child  that  has  fortunately  escaped 
"  education  "  will  make  the  transition  for  itself  from 
sub-human  races  to  mankind,  and  instances  will  occur, 
say,  where  extreme  short-sightedness  or  deafness  ap- 
pears in  children  whose  parents  were  similarly  afflicted, 
and  were  perhaps  closely  related.  At  yet  a  later  age  a 
boy  or  girl  may  learn  the  doom  which  often  falls  upon 
the  children  of  drunkards. 

And  then  may  it  not  be  possible,  when  a  little  boy 
asks  what  he  is  to  be  when  he  grows  up,  to  suggest 
that  the  highest  profession  to  which  he  can  be  called, 
for  which  he  may  strive  to  make  himself  worthy,  is 
fatherhood?  And  when  the  racial  instinct  awakes, 
would  it  be  wrong,  improper,  indecent,  to  teach  that  it 
has  a  purpose,  that  no  attribute  of  mind  or  body  has  a 
higher  purpose,  that  this  is  holy  ground?  Or  is  it 

1  By  some  such  means  we  may  hope  that  man  too  may  some 
day  become  domesticated  without  losing  his  fertility! 


i6a      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

better  that  by  silence,  both  as  to  the  fact  and  as  to  its 
meaning,  we  should  make  it  unmentionable,  indecent, 
dishonorable?  The  Bible  is  used  now-a-days  as  an 
instrument  of  political  immorality,  but  if  and  when  it 
should  be  employed  for  the  function  of  other  great 
literature,  there  is  a  passage  sufficiently  relevant  to  our 
present  argument.1 

Perhaps  we  are  wrong  in  regarding  and  treating  the 
racial  instinct  as  if  it  were  animal  and  low,  a  thing  as 
far  as  possible  to  be  ignored,  repressed,  treated  with 
silent  contempt  in  education  and  elsewhere.  We  may 
be  wrong  in  practice  because  the  method  is  not  suc- 
cessful, because  the  development  of  this  instinct  is  in- 
evitable and  .little  short  of  imperious  in  every  normal 
child  if  that  child  is  ever  to  become  a  man  or  a  woman, 
and  because  our  silence  does  not  involve  the  silence  of 
less  responsible  persons  who  are  less  likely  even  than 
we  ourselves  to  teach  the  young  inquirer  that  this 
thing  exists  for  parenthood,  and  is  therefore  holy  and 
to  be  treated  as  such. 

Perhaps  we  are  wrong  in  principle  also,  since  tnat 
which  exists  for  parenthood,  and  without  which  the 
continuance  and  future  terrestrial  hope  of  mankind  is 
impossible,  cannot  be  animal  and  low,  unless  human 
life,  even  at  its  best  attained  or  attainable,  be  animal 
and  low.  Our  business  rather  is  to  treat  this  great 
fact  in  a  spirit  worthy  of  the  purpose  for  which  it  ex- 
ists; and  therefore,  as  part  of  that  process  of  educa- 
tion by  which  we  desire  to  make  the  young  into  rea- 
sonable, moral  and  fully  human  beings  to  teach  expli- 
citly, without  unworthy  shame,  that  this  thing  exists 

1  Corinthians  xii,  22,  23,  24. 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE      163 

for  the  highest  of  purposes,  that  nothing  which  the 
future  holds  for  boy  or  girl  can  conceivably  be  higher 
or  happier  than  worthy  parenthood,  however  common- 
place that  may  appear  to  common  eyes,  and  that  ac- 
cordingly this  instinct  is  to  be  guarded,  treated,  used, 
honored  as  for  parenthood,  a  fact  which  immediately 
raises  it  from  the  egoistic  to  the  altruistic  plane.  We 
have  to  learn  and  to  teach  that  worthy  parenthood  is 
the  highest  end  which  education  can  achieve  —  highest 
alike  on  the  ground  of  its  services  to  the  individual  and 
its  services  to  the  future,  and  the  relation  of  the  racial 
instinct  to  parenthood  being  what  it  is,  we  have  to 
look  upon  it  in  that  light,  at  once  austere  and  splendid. 
In  the  teaching  of  girls,  only  a  false  and  disastrous 
prudery  offers  any  great  obstacle.  The  idea  of 
motherhood  is  essentially  natural  to  the  normal  girl. 
It  is  the  eugenic  education  of  boys  that  is  more  diffi- 
cult, and  the  possibility  of  which  will  be  questioned  in 
some  quarters,  especially  by  those  who  regard  the  type 
of  boy  evolved  in  semi-monastic  institutions,  devoid 
of  feminine  influence,  as  a  normal  and  unchangeable 
being.  Co-educationists,  however,  are  teaching  us  to 
revise  that  opinion,  and  will  yet  demonstrate,  perhaps, 
that  the  inculcation  of  the  idea  of  fatherhood  is  not  so 
impossible  nor  so  alien  to  the  boy  nature  as  some 
would  suppose.  If  such  a  duty  devolved  upon  the 
present  writer,  he  would  feel  inclined,  perhaps,  to  pre- 
sent his  teachings  in  terms  of  patriotism.  He  would 
urge  that  "  there  is  no  wealth  but  life" ;  that  nations 
are  made  not  of  provinces  or  property  but  of  peo- 
ple; that  modern  biology  is  teaching  historians  to 
explain  such  phenomena  as  the  fall  of  Rome  in  terms 


164      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

of  the  quality  of  the  national  life;  that  therefore,  in- 
dividuals being  mortal,  parenthood  necessarily  takes  its 
place  as  the  supreme  factor  of  national  destiny;  that 
the  true  patriotism  must  therefore  concern  itself  with 
the  conditions  and  the  quality  of  parenthood  —  much 
less  with  its  quantity;  that  the  patriotism  which  ig- 
nores these  truths  is  ignorant  and  must  be  disastrous : 
that  we  must  turn  our  attention  therefore  from  flag 
waving  to  questions  of  individual  conduct ;  that  if  alco- 
hol and  syphilis,  for  instance,  can  be  demonstrated  to 
be  what  I  would  call  racial  poisons,  the  young  patriot 
must  make  himself  aware  of  their  relation  to  parent- 
hood, and  must  act  upon  his  knowledge  of  that  rela- 
tion. It  can  thus  be  demonstrated  that  righteousness 
exalteth  a  nation  not  only  in  the  spiritual  but  also  in 
the  most  concrete  sense. 

To  this  we  shall  come.  We  may  even  recognize 
eugenic  education  as  the  most  urgent  need  of  the  day, 
as  the  most  radical  and  rational,  perhaps  even  the  most 
hopeful,  of  the  methods  by  which  the  cleansing  of  the 
city,  and  much  more,  is  to  be  achieved.  We  must 
create  a  eugenic  aspect  for  the  moral  sense.  We  can 
associate  this  alike  with  individual  and  civic  duty,  and 
with  those  very  ideals  to  which,  as  we  all  know,  the 
young  most  readily  respond.  Thus  I  believe  it  shall 
be  said  of  us  in  the  after  time  that  we  have  raised  up 
the  foundations  of  many  generations. 

And  so,  finally,  the  unselfish  significance  of  mar- 
riage might  conceivably  be  taught,  alike  to  boys  and 
girls,  and  especially  in  the  case  of  undoubtedly  good 
stocks  might  we  inculcate,  as  Mr.  Galton  has  pointed 
out,  a  rational  pride  in  ancestry  —  that  is  to  say,  a 


EDUCATION  AND  RACE  CULTURE       165 

rational  pride  in  the  quality  of  the  germ-plasm  which 
has  been  entrusted  to  us.  And  so  may  be  cultivated 
a  eugenic  aspect  of  the  moral  sense  —  which  is  im- 
measurably more  plastic  than  any  but  the  student  of 
moral  ideas  knows  —  and,  thus  endowed,  the  young 
man  or  woman  will  be  prepared  for  the  possibility  of 
marriage.  It  is  perfectly  conceivable  that  in  days  to 
come  the  argument  —  in  any  case  false  —  that  affec- 
tion never  brooks  control,  may  become  wholly  irrele- 
vant, when  there  arises  a  generation  in  whose  members 
there  has  been  cultivated  or  created  the  eugenic  sense. 
It  is  conceivable  that,  just  as  to-day  the  mere  possibil- 
ity of  falling  in  love  is  arrested  by  any  of  a  thousand 
trivial  considerations,  so  misplaced  affection  may  be 
incapable  of  arising  because  its  possible  object  affronts 
the  educated  eugenic  sense.  The  natural  basis  for 
such  education  already  exists.  But  the  natural  eu- 
genic sense  still  works  mainly  on  the  physical  plane, 
and  although  we  owe  to  it  the  maintenance  of  our 
present  modest  standard  of  physical  beauty,  we  aim  at 
higher  .ideals  —  and  will  one  day  thus  attain  them. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  SUPREMACY   OF   MOTHERHOOD 

"The  dregs  of  the  human  species  —  the  blind,  the  deaf  mute, 
the  degenerate,  the  imbecile,  the  epileptic  —  are  better  protected 
than  pregnant  women." — BOUCHACOURT. 

"I  hold  that  the  two  crowning  and  most  accursed  sins  of  the 
society  of  this  present  day  are  the  carelessness  with  which  it 
regards  the  betrayal  of  women,  and  the  brutality  with  which  it 
suffers  the  neglect  of  children." — RUSKIN. 

A  CHAPTER  must  be  included  here  concerning  a  ques- 
tion which  can  never  safely  be  ignored  in  any  consid- 
eration of  race-culture,  but  the  importance  of  which, 
as  I  think  I  see  it,  is  recognized  by  no  one  who  has 
concerned  himself  at  all  with  this  subject,  from  Mr. 
Francis  Galton  himself  downwards.  We  must  all  be 
agreed,  Mr.  Galton  declares,  as  to  the  propriety  of 
breeding,  if  it  be  possible,  for  health,  energy  and  abil- 
ity, whatever  else  may  be  doubtful.  To  this  I  would 
add  that,  whether  we  are  agreed  or  not,  we  must  breed 
for  motherhood,  and  that,  even  if  we  do  not,  we  shall 
have  to  reckon  with  it.  The  general  eugenic  position, 
I  fancy,  is  that  the  requirements  which  we  should  make 
of  both  sexes,  the  mothers  of  the  future  as  well  as  the 
fathers,  are  essentially  identical:  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  have  not  yet  reckoned  with  the  vast  impor- 
tance of  motherhood  as  a  factor  in  the  evolution  of  all 
the  higher  species  of  animals,  and  its  absolute  suprem- 

166 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      167 

acy,  inevitable  and  persistent  whether  recognized  or 
ignored,  in  the  case  of  man.  Any  system  of  eugenics 
or  race-culture,  any  system  of  government,  any  pro- 
posal for  social  reform  —  as,  for  instance,  the  reduc- 
tion of  infant  mortality  —  which  fails  to  reckon  with 
motherhood  or  falls  short  adequately  appraising  it,  is 
foredoomed  to  failure  and  will  continue  to  fail  so  long 
as  the  basal  facts  of  human  nature  and  the  development 
of  the  human  individual  retain  even  approximately 
their  present  character.  Whatever  proposals  for  eu- 
genics or  race-culture  be  made  or  carried  out,  the  fact 
will  remain  that  the  race  is  made  up  of  mortal  individ- 
uals; that  every  one  of  these  begins  its  visible  life  as 
a  helpless  baby,  and  that  the  system  which  does  not 
permit  the  babies  to  survive,  they  will  not  permit  to 
survive.  This  is  a  general  and  universal  proposition, 
admitting  of  no  exceptions,  past,  present  or  to  come. 
It  applies  equally  to  conscious  systems  of  race-culture, 
to  forms  of  marriage,  to  forms  of  government,  to  any 
other  social  institution  or  practice  or  character  that 
can  be  named  or  conceived.  Upon  every  one  of  these 
the  babies  pronounce  a  judgment  from  which  there  is 
no  appeal,  and  the  execution  of  which  is  never  long 
postponed.  The  baby  may  be  a  potential  Newton, 
Shakespeare,  Beethoven  or  Buddha,  but  it  is  at  its 
birth  the  most  helpless  thing  alive,  the  potentialities  of 
which  avail  it  not  one  whit.  It  is  in  more  need  of 
care,  immediate  and  continuous,  than  a  baby  microbe 
or  a  baby  cat,  whatever  the  unpublished  glories  of 
which  its  brain  contains  the  promise;  and  in  the  total 
absence  of  any  apparatus,  mechanical,  legal,  or  scien- 
tific, which  can  provide  the  mother's  breast  and  the 


168     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

mother's  love,  individual  motherhood,  in  its  exqui- 
sitely complementary  aspects,  physical  and  psychical, 
will  remain  the  dominant  factor  of  history  so  long  as 
the  final  judgments  upon  every  present  and  the  final  de- 
terminations for  every  future  lie  in  the  hands  of  help- 
less babyhood  —  which  will  be  the  case  so  long  as  man 
is  mortal.  When,  if  ever,  science,  having  previously 
conquered  disease,  identifies  the  cause  of  natural  death 
and  removes  them,  then  motherhood  and  babyhood 
may  be  thrown  upon  the  rubbish  heap ;  but  until  that 
hour  they  are  enthroned  by  decree  of  Nature  and  can 
be  dethroned  only  at  the  cost  of  her  certain  and  anni- 
hilative  vengeance. 

It  is  the  master  paradox  that  at  his  first  appearance 
the  lord  of  the  earth  should  be  the  most  helpless  of  liv- 
ing things.  Consider  a  new-born  baby.  "  Unable  to 
stand,  much  less  to  wander  in  search  of  food;  very 
nearly  deaf;  all  but  blind;  well-nigh  indiscriminating 
as  to  the  nature  of  what  is  presented  to  its  mouth ;  ut- 
terly unable  to  keep  itself  clean,  yet  highly  susceptible 
to  the  effects  of  dirt ;  able  to  indicate  its  needs  only  by 
alternately  turning  its  head,  open-mouthed,  from  side 
to  side  and  then  crying;  possessed  of  an  almost  ludi- 
crously hypersensitive  interior ;  unable  to  fast  for  more 
than  two  or  three  hours,  yet  having  the  most  precise 
and  complicated  dietetic  requirements;  needing  the 
most  carefully  maintained  warmth;  easily  injured  by 
draughts;  the  prey  of  bacteria  (which  take  up  a  per- 
manent abode  in  its  alimentary  canal  by  the  eleventh 
day)  —  where  is  to  be  found  a  more  complete  picture 
of  helpless  dependence?"  *  How  comes  it  that  this 
creature  is  to  be  lord  of  the  earth,  and  a  member 

*  Quoted  from  the  author's  "Evolution,  the  Master  Key." 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      169 

of  the  only  species  which  succeeds  in  continually  multi- 
plying itself  ? 

MOTHERHOOD  AND  INTELLIGENCE. —  We  have 
maintained  that  the  vital  character  which  is  of  supreme 
survival-value  for  man  is  his  intelligence,  and  this,  as 
we  know,  is  his  unique  possession.  It  is  very  largely 
for  intelligence,  therefore,  that  race-culture  or  eugenics 
proposes,  if  possible,  to  work.  But  if  there  be  cer- 
tain conditions  which  must  be  complied  with  before 
intelligence  can  possibly  be  evolved,  eugenics  will  come 
to  disaster  should  it  ignore  them.  These  conditions 
do  exist,  and  have  hitherto  been  entirely  ignored  by 
all  students  of  this  question.  Let  certain  great  facts 
be  observed. 

Why  is  the  human  baby  the  most  helpless  of  all 
creatures?  Since  it  is  to  become  the  most  capable, 
should  it  not,  even  in  its  infant  state,  show  signs  of  its 
coming  superiority?  What  is  the  meaning  of  this 
paradox  ? 

The  answer  is  that,  so  far  as  physical  weapons  of 
offense  and  defense  are  concerned,  these  have  disap- 
peared because  intelligence  makes  them  superfluous  or 
even  burdensome.  But  the  peculiar  helplessness  of  the 
human  infant  depends  not  upon  its  nakedness  in  the 
physical  sense  but  upon  its  lack  of  very  nearly  all  in- 
stinctive capacities.  It  is  this  absence  of  effective 
instincts  which  distinguishes  the  baby  from  the  young 
of  all  other  creatures.  Why  should  its  endowment 
in  this  respect  be  so  inferior  ? 

It  is  because  of  the  fact  that,  if  instinct  is  to  give 
rise  to  intelligence,  it  must  be  plastic.  A  purely  in- 
stinctive creature  reacts  to  certain  sets  of  circumstances 


170      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

in  certain  effortless,  perfect  and  fixed  ways.  The  re- 
actions are  the  whole  of  its  psychical  life.  They  need 
no  education,  being  as  perfectly  performed  on  the  first 
occasion  as  on  the  last,  and  in  many  instances  being 
performed  only  once  in  the  whole  history  of  the  crea- 
ture in  question.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  al- 
most incapable  of  education,  and  even  in  the  cases 
where  they  lack  absolute  perfection  at  first,  they  only 
require  the  merest  modicum  of  opportunity  in  order 
to  acquire  it.  Perfect  within  their  limits,  they  are 
yet  most  definitely  limited.  They  never  achieve  the 
new,  they  are  utterly  at  fault  in  novel  circumstances, 
and  they  are  wholly  incapable  of  creating  circum- 
stances. 

A  creature  cannot  be  at  once  purely  instinctive  and 
intelligent.  An  instinctive  action  is  simply  a  cpm- 
pound  reflex  action,  a  highly  adapted  automatism: 
now  automatism  and  intelligence  are  necessarily  in- 
versely proportional.  It  is  possible  for  an  intelligent 
creature  to  acquire  automatisms,  which  are  popularly 
described  as  instinctive.  They  are  not  instincts,  how- 
ever, but  the  acquired  equivalents  of  instincts :  "  sec- 
ondary automatisms."  If  they  are  used  to  replace 
intelligence,  the  individual,  in  so  far,  sinks  from  the 
human  to  the  sub-human  level.  Their  proper  func- 
tion is  to  leave  the  intelligence  free  for  higher  pur- 
poses more  worthy  of  it  than,  say,  the  act  of  dressing 
oneself. 

In  order  that  an  intelligent  creature  should  be 
evolved  it  was  necessary  that  instinct  should  become 
plastic.  Intelligence  could  not  be  superposed  upon  a 
complete  and  final  instinctive  equipment.  You  cannot 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      171 

determine  your  own  acts  if  they  are  already  deter- 
mined for  you  by  your  nervous  organization.  The 
incomparable  superiority  of  intelligence  depends  upon 
its  limitless  and  creative  character,  in  virtue  of  which, 
as  Disraeli  puts  it,  "  men  are  not  the  creatures  of  cir- 
cumstances; circumstances  are  the  creatures  of  men." 
But  whilst  intelligence  can  learn  everything,  it  has 
everything  to  learn,  and  the  most  nearly  intelligent 
creature  whom  the  earth  affords  thus  begins  his  inde- 
pendent life  almost  wholly  bereft  of  all  the  instru- 
ments which  have  served  the  lower  creatures  so  well, 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  provided  with  an  ut- 
terly undeveloped,  and  indeed,  at  that  time  non-ex- 
istent, weapon  which,  even  if  it  did  exist,  he  could 
not  use.  Hence  the  unique  helplessness  of  the  human 
baby :  one  of  the  most  wonderful  and  little  appreciated 
facts  in  the  whole  of  nature  —  effectively  hidden  from 
the  glass  eyes  of  the  kind  of  man  who  calls  a  baby  a 
"  brat/'  but,  to  eyes  that  can  see,  not  only  the  master 
paradox  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view  but  also 
a  fact  of  the  utmost  moment  from  the  practical  point 
of  view. 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MOTHERHOOD. —  It  directly  fol- 
lows that  motherhood  is  supremely  important  in  the 
case  of  man.  It  is  the  historical  fact  that  its  impor- 
tance in  the  history  of  the  animal  world  has  been 
steadily  increasing  throughout  seonian  time.  The 
most  successful  and  ancient  societies  we  know,  those 
of  the  social  insects,  which  antedate  by  incalculable 
ages  even  the  first  vertebrates,  could  not  survive  for  a 
single  generation  without  the  motherhood  or  foster- 
motherhood  to  which  the  worker  females  sacrifice  their 


172       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

lives  and  their  own  chances  of  physical  maternity. 

The  development  of  maternal  care  may  be  steadily 
traced  throughout  the  vertebrate  series  —  pari  passu 
with  evolution  of  sexual  relations  towards  the  ideal  of 
monogamy,  which  is  ideal  just  because  of  its  incom- 
parable services  to  motherhood.  But  whilst  mother- 
hood is  of  the  utmost  service  for  lower  creatures,  end- 
ing always  to  lessen  infant  mortality  —  if  it  may  be 
so  called  —  and  to  increase  the  proportion  of  life  to 
death  and  birth,  it  is  of  supreme  service  in  the  case  of 
man  because  of  the  absolute  dependence  upon  it  of  in- 
telligence, the  solitary  but  unexampled  weapon  with 
which  he  has  won  the  earth.  Hence  in  breeding  for 
intelligence  we  cannot  afford  to  ignore  that  upon 
which  intelligence  depends.  Even  if  we  could  pro- 
duce genius  at  will,  we  should  find  our  young  geniuses 
just  as  dependent  upon  motherhood  as  the  common 
run  of  mankind.  Newton  himself  was  a  seven 
months'  baby,  and  the  potentialities  of  gravitation  and 
the  calculus  and  the  laws  of  motion  in  his  brain  could 
not  save  him :  motherhood  could  and  did. 

Even  our  least  biological  reformers  must  admit  that 
purely  physical  motherhood,  up  to  the  point  of  birth, 
can  scarcely  be  omitted  in  any  schemes  for  social  re- 
form or  race-culture.  Some  of  them  will  even  ad- 
mit that  purely  physical  motherhood,  so  far  as  the 
mother's  breasts  are  concerned,  cannot  wisely  be  dis- 
pensed with.  The  psychical  aspects  of  motherhood, 
however,  many  of  these  writers  —  I  do  not  call  them 
thinkers  —  ignore.  In  relation  to  infant  mortality  — 
which  is  the  most  obvious  symptom  of  causes  produc- 
tive of  vast  and  widespread  physical  deterioration 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD       173 

amongst  the  survivors,  and  which  must  be  abolished 
before  any  really  effective  race-culture  is  possible  —  it 
is  worth  noting  that  motherhood  cannot  safely  be  su- 
perseded. I  do  not  believe  in  the  creche  or  the  munici- 
pal milk  depot  except  as  stop-gaps,  or  as  object-lessons 
for  those  who  imagine  that  the  slaughtered  babies  are 
not  slaughtered  but  die  of  inherent  defect,  and  that 
therefore  infant  mortality  is  a  beneficent  process.  In 
working  for  the  reduction  of  this  evil  we  must  work 
through  and  by  motherhood.  In  some  future  age,  dis- 
playing the  elements  of  sanity,  our  girls  will  be  in- 
structed in  these  matters.  At  present  the  most  im- 
portant profession  in  the  world  is  almost  entirely 
carried 'on  by  unskilled  labor,  and  until  this  state  is  put 
an  end  to,  it  is  almost  idle  to  talk  of  race-culture  at  all. 
But  under  our  present  system  of  education,  false  and 
rotten  as  it  is  in  principles  and  details  alike,  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  send  visitors  to  the  homes  of  the  classes 
which,  in  effect,  supply  almost  the  whole  of  the  future 
population  of  the  country,  and  to  establish  schools  for 
mothers  on  every  hand. 

PSYCHICAL  MOTHERHOOD. —  I  confess  myself  op- 
posed to  the  principle  of  bribing  a  woman  to  become  a 
mother,  whether  overtly  or  covertly,  whether  in  the 
guise  of  State-aid  or  in  the  form  of  eugenic  premiums 
for  maternity.  It  may  sound  very  well  to  offer  a 
bonus  for  the  production  of  babies  by  mothers  whom 
the  State  or  any  eugenic  power  considers  fit  and 
worthy.  But  though  the  bonus  may  help  mother- 
hood in  its  physical  aspects,  the  importance  of  which 
no  one  questions,  I  do  not  see  what  service  it  renders 
to  motherhood  in  its  psychical  aspects  —  which  are  at 


174      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

least  equally  important.  What  is  the  outlook  for  the 
baby  when  the  bonus  is  spent?  In  fact,  with  all  def- 
erence to  Mr.  Galton,  and  with  such  deference  as  may 
be  due  to  the  literary  triflers  who  have  discussed  this 
matter,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  cardinal  requisite 
for  a  mother  is  love  of  children.  Ignorant  this  may 
be,  and  indeed  at  first  always  is,  but  if  it  is  there  it 
can  be  instructed.  The  woman  who  does  not  think 
the  possession  of  a  baby  a  sufficient  prize  is  no  fit  ob- 
ject, I  should  say,  for  any  other  kind  of  bribe  or  lure. 
The  woman  who  "would  rather  have  a  spare  bed- 
room "  than  a  "  baby  "  is  the  woman  whom  I  do  not 
want  to  have  a  baby.  Thus  I  look  with  suspicion  on 
any  proposals  which  assume  that  the  psychical  ele- 
ments of  motherhood  are  of  little  moment  in  eugen- 
ics. I  see  no  sign  or  prospect  that  they  can  be  dis- 
pensed with,  and  I  think  eugenics  is  going  to  work  on 
wrong  lines  if  it  proposes  to  ignore  them.  Even  if 
you  turn  out  Nature  with  a  fork  she  -will  yet  return 
—  tamen  usque  recurret. 

In  this  question  we  should  be  able  to  derive  great 
assistance  from  biography.  Real  guidance,  I  believe, 
is  obtained  from  this  source,  but  only  a  pitiable  frac- 
tion of  that  which  should  be  obtained.  Scientific 
biography  is  yet  to  seek,  and  it  is  the  ironical  fac 
that  when  Herbert  Spencer,  in  his  Autobiography, 
devoted  a  large  amount  of  space  to  the  discussion  o1 
both  his  parents  and  their  relatives,  the  literary  critics 
were  bored  to  death.  Nevertheless,  we  cannot  know 
too  much  about  the  ancestry,  on  both  sides,  and  the 
early  environment  of  great  men.  At  present  it  is 
always  tacitly  assumed  that  a  great  man  is  the  son  of 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      175 

his  father  alone.  The  biographer  would  probably 
admit,  if  pressed,  that  doubtless  some  woman  or 
other  was  involved  in  the  matter,  and  that  her  name 
was  so  and  so  —  if  any  one  thinks  it  worth  mention- 
ing. On  the  score  of  heredity  alone,  however,  we 
derive,  men  and  women  alike,  with  absolute  equality 
from  both  parents;  and  we  cannot  know  too  much 
about  the  mothers  of  men  of  genius.  Such  knowl- 
edge would  often  avail  us  materially  in  cases  where 
the  paternal  ancestry  offers  little  explanation  of  the 
child's  destiny. 

We  do  owe,  however,  to  great  men  themselves 
many  warm  and  unqualified  tributes  to  their  mothers, 
not  on  the  score  of  heredity,  but  on  the  score  of 
the  psychical  aspects  of  motherhood.  This,  indeed, 
is  one  of  the  great  lessons  of  biography  which  some 
eugenists  have  forgotten.  It  is  all  very  well  to  breed 
for  intelligence,  but  intelligence  needs  nurture  and 
guidance,  and  that  need  is  the  more  urgent,  the  more 
powerful  and  original  the  intelligence  in  question. 
The  physical  functions  of  motherhood  from  the  mo- 
ment of  birth  onwards  can  be  effected,  no  doubt,  though 
at  very  great  cost,  by  means  of  incubators  and  milk 
laboratories,  and  so  forth.  But  there  is  no  counter- 
feiting or  replacing  the  psychical  component  of  com- 
plete maternity,  and  a  generation  of  the  highest  in- 
telligence borne  by  unmaternal  women  would  prob- 
ably succeed  only  in  writing  the  blackest  and  maddest 
page  in  history. 

THE  EUGENIC  DEMAND  FOR  LOVE. —  Mr.  Galton  de- 
sires that  we  breed  for  physique,  ability,  and  energy. 
But  we  also  need  more  love,  and  we  must  breed  for 


1 76      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

that.  Nothing  is  easier  or  more  inevitable  once  we 
make  human  parenthood  conscious  and  deliberate. 
When  children  are  born  only  to  those  who  love  chil- 
dren, and  who  will  tend  to  transmit  their  high  meas- 
ure of  that  parental  instinct  from  which  all  love  is 
derived,  we  shall  bring  to  earth  a  heaven  compared 
with  which  the  theologians'  is  but  a  fool's  paradise. 

The  first  requisite,  then,  for  the  mothers  of  the 
future,  the  elements  of  physical  health  being  as- 
sumed,  is  that  they  should  be  motherly.  They  may 
or  may  not,  in  addition,  be  worthy  of  such  exquisite 
titles  as  "  the  female  Shakespeare  of  America,"  but 
they  must  have  motherliness  to  begin  with.  For 
this  indispensable  thing  there  is  no  substitute.  It 
must  certainly  be  granted,  and  the  fact  should  not  be 
ignored,  that  the  hidden  spring  of  motherliness  in  a 
girl  may  be  revealed  only  by  actual  maternity,  and 
the  frivolous  damsel  who  used  to  think  babies  "silly 
squalling  things  "  may  be  mightily  transformed  when 
the  silly  squalling  thing  is  her  own  —  and  the  Fifth 
Symphony  sound  and  fury  signifying  nothing  com- 
pared with  its  slightest  whimper.  I  will  grant  even 
that  the  maternal  instinct  is  so  deeply  rooted  and  uni- 
versal that  its  absence  must  be  regarded  as  either  a 
rare  abnormality  or  else  as  the  product  of  the  gross- 
est mal-education  in  the  wide  sense.  But  the  reader 
will  not  blame  me  for  insisting  at  such  length  upon 
what,  as  he  would  think,  no  one  could  deny,  when 
he  discovers  that  these  salient  truths  are  denied,  and 
that  in  what  should  be  the  sacred  name  of  eugenics, 
they  are  openly  flouted  and  defied. 

Be-fore  we  go  on  to  consider  these  perversions  of  a 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD     177 

great  idea,  it  may  briefly  be  observed  that,  though 
fatherhood  is  historically  a  mushroom  growth  com- 
pared with  motherhood,  and  though  its  importance 
is  vastly  less,  yet  as  a  complementary  principle,  aid- 
ing and  abetting  motherhood,  and  making  for  its 
most  perfect  expression,  fatherhood  played  a  great 
part  in  animal  evolution,  in  the  right  line  of  progress, 
ages  before  man  appeared  upon  the  earth  at  all,  and 
that  its  work  is  not  yet  done.  To  this  subject  we 
must  return.  Meanwhile  it  is  well  to  note  the  dan- 
gers with  which  eugenics  is  at  present  threatened  in 
the  form  of  certain  proposals  which,  if  for  a  time 
they  became  popular  —  and  they  have  elements  mak- 
ing for  popularity  —  would  inevitably  throw  the 
gravest  discredit  upon  the  whole  subject. 

EUGENICS  AND  THE  FAMILY. —  Certain  remarkable 
tendencies  invoking  the  name  of  eugenics  are  now  to 
be  observed  in  Germany.  These  have  considerable 
funds,  much  enthusiasm,  journalistic  support,  and 
even  a  large  measure  of  assistance  in  academic  cir- 
cles. In  pursuance  of  the  idea  of  eugenics  there  is  a 
movement  the  nature  of  which  is  indicated  by  the 
following  quotation  from  a  private  letter : — 

"  I  wonder  if  your  attention  was  drawn  to  the  German  projects 
of  the  reform  of  the  Family.  They  all  aim  at  improving  the 
German  race  and  rendering  decisive  its  superiority  over  all 
others.  The  means  seem  to  be  too  revolutionary.  The  more 
modern  wish  the  establishment  of  the  matriarchal  family  (ein 
nach  Mutterrecht),  the  more  logical  require  universal  polygamy 
and  polyandry,  an  individualization  of  Society.  Others  hope  to 
increase  the  production  of  German  geniuses  by  the  '  hellenic 
friendship/  [ !]  The  three  movements  are  strongly  organized, 
command  large  pecuniary  means,  a  phalanx  of  original  and 
prolific  writers,  and  enthusiastic  devotion  to  their  cause.  More 


178     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

even  than  the  support  of  Courts  and  aristocracy  is,  in  my  eyes, 
that  of  the  Universities.  It  is  there  that  the  destinies  of  Ger- 
many have  always  been  shaped,  and  if  they  are  determined  to 
reform  the  Family  in  that  way,  it  will  be  done.  .  .  .  The  Her- 
ren  Professoren  are  terribly  in  earnest,  yet  they  say  things 
which  even  to  the  least  prejudiced  minds  appear  ridiculous  and 
even  vulgar.  Still,  their  projects  have  some  relation  to  Eugenics, 
and  to  Sociology  in  general.'* 

This  sufficiently  indicates  the  dangers  run  by  the 
eugenic  principle  at  the  hands  of  those  who  see  in  it 
an  instrument  of  protest  and  rebellion  against  estab- 
lished things.  We  dare  not  repudiate  the  sacred  prin- 
ciples of  protest  and  rebellion,  which  have  been  the 
conditions  of  all  progress,  but  believing  in  mother- 
hood as  we  must,  believing  it  to  be  authorized  by 
nature  herself  and  not  by  any  human  conventions, 
we  must  deplore  any  tendencies  such  as  the  two  last 
cited.  For  us  in  this  country,  however,  a  more  im- 
mediate interest  attaches  to  the  views  of  a  much  ad- 
mired and  discussed  writer  who  claims  to  be  a  social 
philosopher  of  the  first  order,  and  whose  claims  must 
now  be  examined. 

The  opinions  of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  on  the  question 
of  eugenics  may  be  quoted  from  his  contribution  to 
the  subject  published  in  Sociological  Papers  1904,  pp. 
74,  75,  in  discussion  of  Mr.  Galton's  great  paper. 
Mr.  Shaw  begins  by  saying :  "  I  agree  with  the  paper 
and  go  so«far  as  to  say  that  there  is  now  no  reasonable 
excuse,  for  refusing  to  face  the  fact  that  nothing  but 
a  eugenic  religion  can  save  our  civilization  from  the 
fate  that  has  overtaken  all  previous  civilizations." 
And  further: — 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      179 

"I  am  afraid  we  must  make  up  our  minds  either  to  face  a 
considerable  shock  to  vulgar  opinion  in  this  matter  or  to  let 
eugenics  alone.  .  .  .  What  we  must  fight  for  is  freedom  to 
breed  the  race  without  being  hampered  by  the  mass  of  irrelevant 
conditions  implied  in  the  institution  of  marriage.  If  our  moral- 
ity is  attacked,  we  can  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country 
by  reminding  the  public  that  the  real  objection  to  breeding  by 
marriage  is  that  marriage  places  no  restraint  on  debauchery,  so 
long  as  it  is  monogamic.  .  .  .  What  we  need  is  freedom  for 
people  who  have  never  seen  each  other  before  and  never  intend 
to  see  one  another  again,  to  produce  children  under  certain  def- 
inite public  conditions,  without  loss  of  honor." 

The  conception  of  individual  fatherhood  here 
stated  involves  a  deliberate  reversion  to  the  order  of 
the  beast:  it  excludes  individual  fatherhood  from 
any  function  in  aiding  motherhood  or  in  serving  the 
future.  It  involves,  of  course,  the  total  abolition  of 
the  family.  It  denies  and  flouts  the  very  best  ele- 
ments in  human  nature.  It  assumes  that  the  best 
women  will  find  motherhood  worth  while  without  the 
interest  and  sympathy  and  help  and  protection  of  the 
father.  It  does  not,  however,  condemn  or  exclude 
the  psychical  functions  of  motherhood,  since  so  far 
as  this  quotation  goes  it  might  be  assumed  that  the 
mother  would  be  permitted  to  live  with  her  own 
child.  On  this  point,  however,  Mr.  Shaw  offered 
us  further  guidance  in  his  controversy  with  myself  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  in  December,  1907.  One  or 
two  of  his  dicta  must  here  be  quoted  —  they  followed 
upon  my  remark,  "  Anything  less  like  a  mother  than 
the  State  I  find  it  hard  to  imagine  " : — 

"When  the  State  left  the  children  to  the  mothers,  they  got 
no  schooling;  they  were  sent  out  to  work  under  inhuman  con- 


i8o      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ditions,  under-ground  and  over-ground  for  atrociously  long 
hours,  as  soon  as  they  were  able  to  walk;  they  died  of  typhus 
fever  in  heaps ;  they  grew  up  to  be  as  wicked  to  their  own  chil- 
dren as  their  parents  had  been  to  them.  State  socialism  rescued 
them  from  the  worst  of  that,  and  means  to  rescue  them  from  all 
of  it.  I  now  publicly  challenge  Dr.  Saleeby  to  propose,  if  he 
dares,  to  withdraw  the  hand  of  the  State  and  abandon  the  chil- 
dren to  their  mothers  as  they  fall.  .  .  .  All  I  need  say  is 
that  before  Dr.  Saleeby  can  persuade  me  to  sacrifice  the  future 
of  human  society  to  his  maternalism,  he  will  have  to  tackle  me 
with  harder  weapons  than  the  indignant  enthusiasm  of  a  young 
man's  mother  worship." 

Mr.  Shaw's  teaching  constitutes  a  brutal  and  de- 
liberate libel  upon  the  highest  aspects  of  womanhood. 
For  his  own  purposes  he  attributes  to  the  mothers 
all  the  abominations  which,  as  every  one  knows,  have 
lain  and  in  some  measure  still  lie,  at  the  door  of  the 
State.  The  man  who  has  this  opinion  of  motherhood 
is  complacently  ignorant  of  the  elements  of  the  subject. 
His  charge  is  denied  by  every  one  who  has  worked 
as  doctor  or  nurse  or  visitor  or  missionary  amongst 
the  poorer  classes,  and  knows  that  the  mothers  there 
met  are  of  the  very  salt  of  the  earth. 

It  is  well  to  state  plainly  here  that  these  utterly 
irresponsible  dicta  have  absolutely  no  relation  or  re- 
semblance whatever  to  the  opinions  or  proposals  of 
Mr.  Francis  Galton  himself,  who  desires  to  effect 
race-culture  through  marriage,  and  whose  whole 
propaganda  is  based  upon  this  assumption.  This  we 
shall  afterwards  see.  Meanwhile  we  may  note  Mr. 
Galton's  own  words :  "  The  aim  of  eugenics  is  to 
bring  as  many  influences  as  can  be  reasonably  em- 
ployed, to  cause  the  useful  classes  in  the  community 
to  contribute  more  than  their  proportion  to  the  next 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  MOTHERHOOD      181 

generation."  Mr.  Gallon  would  be  the  first  to  as- 
sert that  influences  designed  to  supersede  motherhood 
and  to  abolish  everything  but  the  physical  aspect  of 
fatherhood,  would  not  be  reasonable,  but  insane  in 
the  highest  degree. 

The  idea  of  race-culture  without  fatherhood  or 
motherhood,  except  in  the  mere  physiological  sense, 
constitutes  a  denial  of  the  greatest  facts  in  evolution, 
as  we  have  seen.  It  ignores  everything  that  is  known 
and  daily  witnessed  regarding  the  development  of 
the  individual,  and  the  formation  of  character,  with- 
out which  intelligence  is  a  curse.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  fear  that  any  such  reversion  to  the  order  of 
the  beast  is  possible,  absolutely  forbidden  as  it  is  by 
the  laws  of  human  nature.  There  is,  however,  reas- 
onable ground  for  apprehension,  especially  when  the 
recent  developments  in  Germany  are  remembered, 
that  the  public  may  obtain  its  notions  of  eugenics  in 
a  highly-garbled  form.1 

It  must  be  asserted  as  fervently  and  plainly  as  pos- 
sible that,  if  the  idea  of  race-culture  is  even  in  the 
smallest  degree  to  be  realized,  it  must  work  through 
motherhood  and  fatherhood  not  less  in  their  psychical 
than  in  their  physical  aspects.  It  is  time  to  have  done 
with  the  gross  delusions  of  Nietzsche  regarding  the 
nature  and  course  of  organic  evolution.  Morality  is 
not  an  invention  of  man  but  man  the  child  of  morality, 

1  Mr.  G.  K  Chesterton,  one  of  the  most  amusing  of  contempo- 
rary phenomena,  has  lately  said,  "  The  most  serious  sociologists, 
the  most  stately  professors  of  eugenics,  calmly  propose  that  for 
the  good  of  the  race  people  should  be  forcibly  married  to  each 
other  by  the  police."  Readers  unacquainted  with  Mr.  Chester- 
ton's standard  of  accuracy  and  methods  of  criticism,  might  be 
misled  by  this  gay  invention. 


1 82      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

and  it  is  not  by  the  abolition  of  motherhood,  in  which 
morality  originated,  nor  of  fatherhood,  its  first  ally, 
that  the  super-man  is  to  be  evolved:  but  by  the  at- 
tainment of  those  lofty  conceptions  of  the  function, 
the  responsibility  and  the  privilege  of  parenthood 
which  it  is  the  first  business  of  eugenics  to  inculcate. 

As  for  marriage,  invaluable  though  at  its  best  it 
be  for  the  completion  and  ennoblement  of  the  indi- 
vidual life,  its  great  function  for  society  and  for  the 
race  is  in  relation  to  childhood.  Thus  considered, 
the  dictum  of  Professor  Westermarck  may  be  un- 
derstood, that  children  are  not  the  result  of  marriage 
but  marriage  the  result  of  children.  This,  in  other 
words,  is  to  say  that  marriage  has  become  evolved 
and  established  as  a  social  institution  because  of  its 
services  to  race-culture.  It  is,  in  short,  the  supreme 
Eugenic  institution.  This  great  subject  must  next  oc- 
cupy our  attention. 


CHAPTER  X 

MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM 

OUR  present  concern  is  the  relation  of  marriage  to 
race-culture,  and  for  this  purpose  we  must  investigate 
an  epoch  ages  before  the  institution  of  human  mar- 
riage, ages  before  mankind  itself.  We  must  first  re- 
mind ourselves  of  what  may  be  called  the  trend  of 
progress  from  the  first  in  respect  of  that  reproduction 
upon  which  all  species  depend,  all  living  individuals 
being  mortal. 

At  first,  in  the  effort  for  survival  and  increase,  life 
tried  the  quantitative  method.  If  we  take  the  present 
day  bacteria  as  representatives  of  the  primitive 
method,  we  see  that  not  quality  nor  individuality  but 
quantity  and  numbers  are  the  means  by  which,  in  their 
case,  life  seeks  to  establish  itself  more  abundantly. 
We  express  our  own  birth-rate  in  its  proportion  per 
year,  to  one  thousand  living:  but  twenty  thousand 
bacteria  injected  into  a  rabbit  have  been  found  to  mul- 
tiply into  twelve  thousand  million  in  one  day.  "  One 
bacterium  has  been  actually  observed  to  rear  a  small 
family  of  eighty  thousand  within  a  period  of  twenty- 
four  hours."  "The  cholera  bacillus  can  duplicate 
every  twenty  minutes,  and  might  thus  in  one  day  be- 
come 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,  with  the  weight, 
according  to  the  calculations  of  Cohn,  of  about  7,366 

183 


184      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

tons.  In  a  few  days,  at  this  rate,  there  would  be  a 
mass  of  bacteria  as  big  as  the  moon,  huge  enough  to 
fill  the  whole  ocean." 

If  now  we  trace  the  history  of  life  up  to  man,  we 
find  in  him  —  as  we  have  seen  —  the  lowest  birth- 
rate of  any  animal  in  proportion  to  his  body  weight, 
the  longest  ante-natal  period,  the  longest  period  of 
maternal  feeding,  and  by  far  the  lowest  infant  mor- 
tality and  general  death-rate.  A  chief  fact  of  prog- 
ress has  been,  in  a  word,  the  supersession  of  the  quan- 
titative by  the  qualitative  criterion  of  survival- value. 
Immeasurably  vast  vital  economy  and  efficiency  have 
thus  been  effected.  The  tendency  of  progress,  in 
short  —  a  tendency  coincident  with  the  evolution  of 
ever  higher  and  higher  species  —  is  to  pass  from 
the  horrible  Gargantuan  wastefulness  of  the  older 
methods  towards  the  evident  but  yet  lamentably  un- 
realized ideal  —  that  every  child  born  shall  reach 
maturity.  This  great  historical  tendency,  which  will 
ultimately  involve  the  restriction  of  parenthood  to 
the  fit,  fine  and  relatively  few,  has  occurred  under  the 
impartial  rule  of  natural  selection  simply  and  solely 
because  it  has  endowed  with  survival-value  the  suc- 
cessive species  in  which  it  has  been  demonstrated. 

THE  RISE  OF  PARENTHOOD. —  Consistently  with  this 
fact  and  with  the  argument  of  the  previous  chapter 
is  the  tendency  towards  the  lengthening  of  infancy, 
a  very  characteristic  condition  of  the  evolution  of 
the  higher  forms  of  life.  This  lengthening  and  ac- 
centuation of  infancy  makes  for  variety  of  develop- 
ment and,  as  we  have  seen,  is  supremely  instanced  in 
man,  where  it  depends  upon  the  transmutation  of 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM        185 

fixed  instincts  into  the  plastic  thing  we  call  intelli- 
gence. Thus,  to  quote  the  words  of  Dr.  Parsons,1 
"  we  find  that  as  infancy  is  prolonged  in  the  progress 
of  species,  the  care  given  to  offspring  by  parents  is 
increased.  It  extends  over  a  longer  period  and  it  is 
directed  more  and  more  towards  the  total  welfare  of 
offspring.  The  need  of  a  potentially  many-sided  and 
enduring  kind  of  parental  care  is  filled  through  the 
social  group  we  call  the  family." 

Apart  from  these  immensely  significant  creatures, 
the  social  insects,  we  find  well-marked  though  prim- 
itive signs  of  motherhood  amongst  the  fishes,  and  in 
a  few  cases,  such  as  the  stickleback,  the  beginnings  of 
fatherhood.  But  it  is  not  until  we  reach  the  mam- 
mals, and  especially  the  monkeys  and  apes,  that  we 
find  a  great  development  of  motherhood,  far  more 
prolonged  and  far  more  important  than  the  more 
frequently  extolled  parental  care  found  amongst  the 
birds. 

Very  interesting,  however,  in  the  case  of  the  fishes 
is  the  fact  observed  by  Sutherland  that  "  as  soon  as 
the  slightest  trace  of  parental  care  is  discovered  the 
chance  of  survival  is  increased  and  the  birth-rate  is 
lowered."  As  a  general  summary  these  words  of 
Dr.  Parsons  will  serve : — "  Diminution  of  offspring 
is  a  threefold  gain  to  a  species,  (i)  It  lessens  the 
vital  drain  upon  the  parent.  (2)  It  enables  the  size 
and  capacity  of  the  limited  number  of  offspring  to 
be  increased.  (3)  In  the  case  of  the  higher  devel- 
opments of  parental  care  after  birth,  it  concentrates 
the  advantage  of  that  care  upon  a  few  instead  of 

1  The  Family,  p.  20. 


i86      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

scattering  it,  thereby  weakening  its  influence,  upon 
many." 

Now  how  are  these  facts  connected  with  that  re- 
lation between  the  parents  which  we  call  marriage, 
temporary  or  permanent,  foreshadowed  or  perfected? 

It  may  be  submitted  that  the  racial  function  or  sur- 
vival-value of  marriage  in  all  its  forms,  low  or  high, 
animal  or  human,  consists  in  its  services  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  motherhood,  these  services  depending  upon 
the  help  and  strength  which  are  afforded  to  mother- 
hood by  fatherhood. 

ANIMAL  MARRIAGE. —  Let  us  now  look  very  briefly 
at  the  facts  of  animal  marriage  from  this  point  of 
view.  The  phrase,  animal  marriage,  may  possibly  of- 
fend the  reader,  but  is  there  any  reason  to  be  offended 
at  the  suggestion  that  the  principle  of  marriage  ac- 
tually has  a  warrant  older  even  than  mankind?  It 
has  lately  been  pointed  out  by  a  distinguished  nat- 
uralist, Mr.  Ernest  Thompson  Seton,  that  animals, 
like  men,  have  long  been  groping,  so  to  say,  for  an 
ideal  form  of  marriage.  We  now  know,  as  will  be 
shown,  that,  contrary  to  popular  opinion,  promiscuity 
does  not  prevail  amongst  the  lowest  races  of  men. 
Equally  false  is  the  popular  notion  that  promiscuity 
prevails  amongst  most  of  the  lower  animals.  Pro- 
miscuity, it  is  true,  does  occur,  but  so  also  does  strict 
monogamy,  "  and  promiscuous  animals,  such  as  rab- 
bits and  voles,  while  high  in  the  scale  of  fecundity, 
are  low  in  the  scale  of  general  development/'  Says 
Mr.  Seton:  "  It  is  commonly  remarked  that  while 
the  Mosaic  law  did  not  expressly  forbid  polygamy, 
it  surrounded  marriage  with  so  many  restrictions  that 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM         187 

by  living  up  to  the  spirit  of  them  the  Hebrew  ulti- 
mately was  forced  into  pure  monogamy.  It  is  ex- 
tremely interesting  to  note  that  the  animals,  in  their 
blind  groping  for  an  ideal  form  of  union,  have  gone 
through  the  same  stages,  and  have  arrived  at  ex- 
actly the  same  conclusion.  Monogamy  is  their  best 
solution  of  the  marriage  question,  and  is  the  rule 
among  all  the  higher  and  more  successful  animals." 

The  moose,  Mr.  Seton  tells  us,  has  several  wives 
in  one  season  but  only  one  at  a  time.  The  hawks 
practice  monogamy  lasting  for  one  season,  "  the  male 
staying  with  the  family,  and  sharing  the  care  of  the 
young  till  they  are  well-grown."  The  wolves  consort 
for  life,  but  the  death  of  one  leaves  the  other  free  to 
mate  again.  There  is  a  fourth  method  "  in  which  they 
pair  for  life,  and,  in  case  of  death,  the  survivor  re- 
mains disconsolate  and  alone  to  the  end.  This  seems 
absurd.  It  is  the  way  of  the  geese/'  The  point 
especially  to  be -insisted  upon  as  regards  animal  mar- 
riage is  its  evident  service  to  their  race-culture,  in 
accordance  with  the  principle  here  laid  down  that 
marriage  is  of  value  because  it  supports  motherhood 
by  fatherhood,  and  that  its  different  forms  are  of 
value  in  proportion  as  they  do  so  more  or  less  ef- 
fectively. We  may  note  also,  as  a  corollary  to  this, 
that  marriage  must  be  more  important  in  proportion 
as  the  young  of  a  species  are  helpless  and  in  proportion 
as  their  helplessness  is  long  continued.  The  import- 
ance of  marriage  for  man,  therefore,  must  necessarily 
be  higher  than  for  any  of  the  lower  animals. 

HUMAN  MARRIAGE. —  We  must  turn  now  to  human 
marriage,  and  the  principle  which  we  must  remember 


i88      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

is  that  of  survival-value.  We  are  discussing  a  nat- 
ural phenomenon  exhibited  by  living  creatures.  This 
is  what  so  few  people  realize  when  they  speak  of 
marriage.  They  cannot  disabuse  themselves  of  the 
idea  that  it  is  a  human  invention,  and  especially  an 
ecclesiastical  invention.  Thus,  on  one  hand,  it  is  sup- 
ported by  persons  who  base  its  claims  on  mystical  or 
dogmatic  grounds;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
attacked  by  those  who  are  opposed  to  ecclesiasticism 
or  religion  of  any  kind,  and  attacked  in  the  name  of 
science  —  in  which,  if  the  fact  could  only  be  recog- 
nized, is  found  every  possible  warrant  and  sanction, 
and  indeed  imperative  demand,  for  this  most  precious 
of  all  institutions.  Here  we  must  endeavor  to  look 
upon  it  as  an  exceedingly  ancient  fact  of  life,  vastly 
more  ancient  than  mankind;  and  judging  it  and  ex- 
plaining it  we  must  apply  Nature's  universal  criterion, 
which  is  that  of  its  survival-value  or  service  to  race- 
culture.  Let  us  then  glance  very  briefly  at  the  actual 
facts  of  human  marriage  —  conceived  as  an  institu- 
tion by  which  the  survival-value  of  fatherhood  is 
added  to  that  of  motherhood. 

The  pioneer  student  of  marriage  from  the  stand- 
point of  science  was  Herbert  Spencer,  who  with  great 
labor,  supported  the  conclusion  that  monogamy  is  the 
highest,  best  and  latest  form  of  marriage.  But  in 
the  absence  of  the  great  mass  of  evidence  which  is 
now  before  us,  Spencer  too  readily  assumed  the  truth 
of  the  popular  notion  that  promiscuity  was  the  prim- 
itive state,  and  taught  that  human  marriage  has  de- 
veloped from  this  through  polygamy  towards  the  ideal 
of  monogamy.  The  work  of  Professor  Westermarck, 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM         189 

however  —  Spencer's  chief  follower  in  this  path  — 
has  shown,  and  later  writers  have  abundantly  con- 
firmed it,  that  this  primitive  promiscuity  never  ex- 
isted. There  is  no  nation  or  race  or  clan  of  man 
now  extant,  however  primitive  or  barbaric,  that  has 
not  definite  marriage  laws;  there  is  no  society  on 
earth,  however  rude,  that  does  not  punish  the  un- 
faithful wife.  Furthermore,  polygamy,  the  only  his- 
torical rival  of  monogamy,  is  now  known  to  have 
played  a  quite  trivial  part  in  history,  not  merely  com- 
pared with  monogamy,  but  as  compared  with  that 
which  it  was  supposed  to  have  played.  Even  in  coun- 
tries which  we  call  polygamous  to-day,  polygamy  is  the 
relatively  rare  exception  and  monogamy  is  the  rule. 
On  this  most  important  question  it  is  well,  however, 
to  quote  the  words  of  Professor  Westermarck  him- 
self:— 

"The  great  majority  of  peoples  are,  as  a  rule,  monogamous, 
and  the  other  forms  of  marriage  are  usually  modified  in  a  monog- 
amous direction."  "As  to  the  history  of  the  forms  of  human 
marriage,  two  inferences  regarding  monogamy  and  polygyny  may 
be  made  with  absolute  certainty;  monogamy,  always  the  pre- 
dominant form  of  marriage,  has  been  more-  prevalent  at  the 
lowest  stages  of  civilization  than  at  somewhat  higher  stages; 
whilst,  at  a  still  higher  stage,  polygyny  has  again,  to  a  great 
extent,  yielded  to  monogamy."  "We  may  thus  take  it  for 
granted  that  civilization,  up  to  a  certain  point,  is  favorable  to 
polygyny;  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  in  its  highest  forms  it 
leads  to  monogamy."  "But,  though  civilization  up  to  a  certain 
point  is  favorable  to  polygyny,  its  higher  forms  invariably  and 
necessarily  lead  to  monogamy." 

It  is  the  principle  of  survival-value  that  explains 
the  dominance  of  monogamy  at  all  stages  of  human 
society  —  with  the  single  exception  of  continuously 


190     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

and  wholly  militant  societies,  in  which  polygamy  ob- 
tained in  consequence  of  the  great  numerical  excess 
of  women.  It  is  the  fate  of  the  children,  in  which 
everything  is  involved,  that  has  determined  the  his- 
tory of  human  marriage.  Furthermore,  we  may  see 
here  one  more  illustration  of  the  truth  that  quality  is 
ousting  quantity  in  the  course  of  progress,  and  that  a 
low  birth-rate  represents  a  more  advanced  stage  than 
a  high  birth-rate.  The  birth-rate  under  polygamy  is 
undoubtedly  high,  but  polygamy  does  not  make  for 
the  survival  and  health  of  the  children,  and  the  infant 
mortality  is  gigantic.  As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  "  the 
form  of  marriage  which  does  not  permit  the  babies 
to  survive,  they  do  not  permit  to  survive.  There  is 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  whole  matter  in  a 
nutshell.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  father's  taste  and 
fancy,  but  of  what  he  leaves  above  ground  when  the 
worms  are  eating  him  below.  .  .  .  No  system 
yet  conceived  can  compare  for  a  moment  with  monog- 
amy in  respect  of  the  one  criterion  which  time  and 
death  recognize,  the  fate  of  the  children." 

In  a  word,  the  wholly  adequate  and  only  possible* 
explanation  of  the  historical  fact  of  the  dominance  of 
monogamy  is  its  supreme  survival-value.  It  has 
competed  with  every  other  kind  of  sex  relation  and 
has  been  selected  by  natural  selection  because  of  its 
supreme  service  for  race-culture  —  the  most  perfect 
conceivable  addition  of  fatherhood  to  motherhood. 

PLATO  AND  MOTHERHOOD. —  Thus  eugenics  must 
repudiate  not  only  the  ideas  of  Mr.  Shaw  on  this  sub- 
ject, but  the  teaching  of  Plato,  from  whom  Mr.  Shaw's 
ideas  on  this  particular  subject  are  apparently  derived. 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM         191 

It  is  in  the  fifth  book  of  his  Republic  that  the  pioneer 
eugenist  lays  down  his  ideas  for  race-culture.  He 
realized,  indeed,  the  importance,  after  birth,  of  the 
nurture  of  children  — "  it  is  of  considerable,  nay,  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  the  State,  when  this  is  rightly 
performed  or  otherwise;"  and  he  refers  also  to  their 
nurture  while  very  young,  "  in  the  period  between  their 
generation  and  their  education,  which  seems  to  be  the 
most  troublesome  of  all."  His  method  involved  a 
complete  community  of  wives  and  children  amongst 
the  guardians  of  the  State,  and  on  no  account  were 
the  parents  to  know  their  own  children  nor  the  chil- 
dren their  parents.  The  best  were  to  be  chosen  for 
parents,  on  the  analogy  of  animal  race-culture  by  man. 
The  children  of  inferior  parents  were  to  be  killed. 
The  others  were  to  be  conveyed  to  the  common  nurs- 
ery of  the  city,  but  every  precaution  was  to  be  taken 
that  no  mother  should  know  her  own  child.  This 
practice  was  to  be  the  cardinal  point  of  the  Republic 
and  "  the  cause  of  the  greatest  good  to  the  city." 

We  see  here,  then,  that  the  very  first  proposals  for 
race-culture  involved  the  destruction  of  marriage  and 
the  family,  and  a  total  denial  of  the  value  of  the  psy- 
chical aspects  of  motherhood  and  fatherhood  alike. 
Plato's  first  critic,  however, 'his  own  great  pupil  Aris- 
totle, devoted  the  best  part  of  his  work,  the  Polities,  to 
showing  that  the  suggestions  of  Plato  were  not  only 
wrong  in  themselves,  but  would  not  secure  his  end. 
Aristotle  showed,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Barker,  that 
"  the  destruction  of  the  family,  and  the  substitution 
in  its  place  of  one  vast  clan,  would  lead  but  to  the  de- 
struction of  warm  feelings,  and  the  substitution  of  a 


192     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

sentiment  which  is  to  them  as  water  is  to  wine. 
.  .  .  So  with  the  system  of  common  marriage,  as 
opposed  to  monogamy.  The  one  encourages  at  best 
a  poor  and  shadowy  sentiment,  while  it  denies  to  man 
the  satisfaction  of  natural  instinct  and  the  education 
of  family  life;  the  other  is  natural  and  right,  both  be- 
cause it  is  based  on  those  instincts,  and  because  it  sat- 
isfies the  moral  nature  of  man,  in  giving  him  objects 
of  permanent  yet  vivid  interest  above  and  beyond  him- 
self." The  truth  of  this  matter  is  that  the  rest  may 
reason  and  welcome  —  but  we  fathers  know. 

MARRIAGE  A  EUGENIC  INSTRUMENT. —  It  has  defi- 
nitely to  be  stated,  then,  that  the  abolition  of  marriage 
and  the  family  is  in  no  degree  whatever  a  part  of  the 
eugenic  proposal.  We  desire  to  achieve  race-culture 
by  and  through  marriage,  on  the  lines  which  indeed 
many  lower  races  of  men  successfully  practice  at  the 
present  day.  We  must  make  parenthood  more 
responsible,  not  less  so.  It  will  afterwards  be  shown 
that  the  suggested  incompatibility  between  marriage 
and  the  family,  on  the  one  hand,  and  race-culture  or 
eugenics  on  the  other,  does  not  exist.  It  will  be 
shown  that  we  have  in  marriage  not  only  the  greatest 
instrument  of  race-culture  that  has  yet  been  employed 
—  half -consciously  —  by  man,  but  also  an  instrument 
supremely  fitted,  and  indeed  without  a  rival,  for  the 
conscious,  deliberate,  and  scientific  intentions  of  mod- 
ern eugenists.  The  applicability  of  marriage  for  this 
purpose  will  be  shown  by  reference  to  actual  facts. 
Mr.  Galton  himself  has  shown  how  effectively  an  edu- 
cated public  opinion  can  employ  marriage  for  the  pur- 
poses of  race-culture,  its  services  to  which  have  indeed 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM         193 

led  to  its  evolution.  It  has  furthermore  to  be  added 
that  only  the  formation  of  public  opinion  can  ever 
lead  to  the  ideal  which  we  desire.  This  opinion  al- 
ready exists  in  some  degree  as  regards  one  or  two 
transmissible  diseases,  and,  though  without  adequate 
scientific  warrant,  as  regards  the  marriage  of  first 
cousins.  In  these  respects  it  is  not  without  some  meas- 
ure of  effectiveness  and  the  fact  is  of  the  utmost 
promise. 

"  Marriage,"  said  Goethe,  "  is  the  origin  and  the 
summit  of  all  civilization."  Perhaps  it  would  be  more 
accurate  to  say  the  family  rather  than  marriage- 
The  childless  marriage  may  be  and  often  is  a  thing  of 
the  utmost  beauty  and  value  to  the  individuals  con- 
cerned, but  it  is  certainly  not  the  origin  of  civilization, 
and  if  it  be  its  summit  it  is  also  its  grave.  The  eugenic 
support  of  marriage,  therefore,  depends  upon  a  belief 
in  the  family,  and  that  form  of  marriage  will  com- 
mend itself  which  provides  the  best  form  of  family. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  certain  eugenists,  polygamy 
would  be  desirable  in  many  cases,  as  extending  the 
parental  opportunities  of  the  man  of  fine  physique  or 
intellectual  distinction.  The  problem  remains,  how- 
ever, as  to  the  nurture  of  the  children  so  obtained,  and 
historical  study  returns  us  a  very  clear  answer  as  to 
the  relative  merits  of  the  polygamous  family  and  the 
monogamous  family.  It  is  this  last  that  pre-eminently 
justifies  itself  on  the  score  of  its  services  to  childhood 
and  therefore  to  the  race.  Its  survival  is  a  matter  of 
absolute  certainty,  because  of  its  survival-value. 
Neither  Plato  nor  Mr.  Shaw,  nor  any  kind  of  collecti- 
vist  legislation  will  permanently  abolish  it. 


194      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  MATERNALISM. —  The  merits  of 
monogamy  can  be  defined  in  terms  of  the  principle 
which  I  would  venture  to  call  maternalism  —  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  permanent  and  radical  importance  of 
motherhood  and  whatever  institutions  afford  it  the 
greatest  aid. 

Maternalism  would  point,  I  think,  to  the  supreme 
paradox  that  the  dominant  creature  of  the  earth  is 
born  of  woman,  and  born  the  most  absolutely  helpless 
of  all  living  creatures  whatsoever,  animal  or  vegetable ; 
it  would  note  that  this  utter  dependence  upon  others, 
mother  or  foster-mother,  is  not  only  the  most  unquali- 
fied known,  but  the  longest  maintained;  it  would  ob- 
serve that  of  all  the  human  beings  now  alive,  all  that 
have  lived,  all  that  are  to  be,  not  one  could  survive  its 
birth  for  twenty-four  hours  but  for  motherhood;  it 
would  note  that  only  motherhood  has  rendered  possi- 
ble the  development  of  instinct  into  that  intelligence 
which,  itself  dependent  upon  motherhood  for  the  pos- 
sibility of  its  development,  has  dependent  upon  it  the 
fact  that  the  earth  is  now  man's  and  the  fulness  there- 
of; and  to  the  advocates  of  all  the  political-isms  that 
can  be  named,  and  the  small  proportion  of  them  that 
can  be  defined,  it  would  apply  its  specific  criterion. 
Do  you  regard  the  safeguarding  and  the  ennoblement 
of  motherhood  as  the  proximate  end  of  all  political 
action,  the  end  through  which  the  ultimate  ends,  the 
production  and  recognition  of  human  worth,  can  alone 
be  attained ;  do  you  realize  that  marriage  is  invaluable 
because  it  makes  for  the  enthronement  of  motherhood 
as  nothing  else  ever  did  or  can;  do  you  realize  that, 
metaphors  about  State  maternity  notwithstanding,  the 


MARRIAGE  AND  MATERNALISM         195 

State  has  neither  womb  nor  breasts,  these  most  rever- 
end and  divine  of  all  vital  organs  being  the  appanage 
of  the  individual  mother  alone? 

The  maternalist  principle  being  assumed,  and  the 
value  of  monogamy  on  the  ground  that  it  supports 
motherhood  by  fatherhood,  the  forthcoming  discussion 
as  to  the  possibilities  of  race-culture  will  assume 
the  persistence  of  monogamy  and  will  center  upon  the 
possibility  of  selecting  or  rejecting,  for  the  purposes 
of  race-culture,  those  who  are  available  for  entrance 
into  the  marriage  state.  The  reader  who  has  not 
studied  social  anthropology  —  and  this  is  true  of 
nearly  all  the  critics  of  eugenics,  very  few  of  whom 
have  studied  anything  —  will  be  astounded,  I  believe, 
to  discover  the  practically  unlimited  extent  to  which 
public  opinion,  whether  or  not  formulated  as  law,  has 
always  been  capable  of  controlling  marriage,  and  there- 
fore, race-culture. 

PROPOSED  DEFINITION  OF  MARRIAGE. —  Recognizing 
the  existence  of  subhuman  marriage,  we  may  be  at  a 
loss  to  define  marriage  as  distinguished  from  sex-re- 
lations in  general.  It  is  that  form  of  sex-relation 
which  involves  or  is  adapted  to  common  parental  care 
of  the  offspring  —  the  support  of  motherhood  by 
fatherhood. 


PART  II 
THE  PRACTICE  OF  EUGENICS 

N'abandonnons  pas  1'avenir  de  notre  race  a  la  fatalite  d' Allah ; 
creons-le  nous-memes. —  FOREL. 

"  It  is  surprising  how  soon  a  want  of  care,  or  care  wrongly 
directed,  leads  to  the  degeneration  of  a  domestic  race ;  but  except 
in  the  case  of  man  himself,  hardly  any  one  is  so  ignorant  as 
to  allow  his  worst  animals  to  breed. 

"  With  savages,  the  weak  in  body  or  mind  are  soon  eliminated, 
and  those  that  survive  commonly  exhibit  a  vigorous  state  of 
health.  We  civilized  men,  on  the  other  hand,  do  our  utmost  to 
check  the  process  of  elimination;  we  build  asylums  for  the 
imbecile,  the  maim  and  the  sick ;  we  institute  poor  laws ;  and  our 
medical  men  exert  their  utmost  skill  to  save  the  life  of  every  one 
to  the  last  moment.  .  .  .  Thus  the  weak  members  of  civil- 
ized societies  propagate  their  kind.  No  one  who  has  attended  to 
the  breeding  of  domestic  animals  will  doubt  that  this  must  be 
highly  injurious  to  the  race  of  man."—  DARWIN,  The  Descent  of 
Man,  1871,  Pt.  i.,  chap.  v. 


THE   PRACTICE  OF  EUGENICS 


CHAPTER  XI 

NEGATIVE    EUGENICS 

HITHERTO  we  have  mainly  concerned  ourselves  with 
broad  aspects  of  theory,  endeavoring  to  prove  that 
conscious  race-culture  is  a  necessity  for  any  civili- 
zation which  is  to  endure,  and  to  show  how  alone 
it  can  be  effected.  But  evidently  for  a  great  many  of 
the  practical  proposals  that  might  be,  and  for  not  a 
few  that  have  been,  based  upon  these  views,  public 
opinion  is  not  ripe.  We  may  be  thankful  to  believe 
that  for  some  it  will  never  be  ripe :  it  would  be  rotten 
first.  Marriage,  for  instance,  we  hold  sacred  and  es- 
sential :  we  find  intolerable  the  idea  of  the  human 
stud-farm ;  we  are  very  dubious  as  to  the  help  of  sur- 
gery ;  we  are  much  more  than  dubious  as  to  the  lethal 
chamber.  It  is  necessary  to  be  reasonable,  and,  in 
seeking  the  superman,  to  remain  at  least  human. 
Now  if  we  were  to  achieve  any  immediate  success  we 
must  clearly  divide  our  proposals,  as  the  present  writer 
did  some  years  ago,  with  Mr.  Galton's  approval,  into 
two  classes:  positive  eugenics  and  negative  eugenics. 
The  one  would  seek  to  encourage  the  parenthood  of 
the  worthy,  the  other  to  discourage  the  parent- 
hood of  the  unworthy.  Positive  eugenics  is  the 
original  eugenics,  but,  as  the  writer  endeavored  to 
show  at  the  time,  negative  eugenics  is  one  with  it  in 

199 


200      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

principle.  The  two  are  complementary,  and  are  both 
practiced  by  Nature :  natural  selection  is  one  with  nat- 
ural rejection.  To  choose  is  to  refuse. 

In  regard  to  positive  eugenics  I,  for  one,  must 
ever  make  the  criticism  that  I  cannot  believe  in  the 
propriety  of  attempting  to  bribe  into  parenthood  peo- 
ple who  have  no  love  of  children:  we  have  to  con- 
sider the  parental  environment  of  the  children  we 
desire,  as  well  as  their  innate  quality.  Thus,  positive 
eugenics  must  largely  take  the  form,  at  present,  of 
removing  such  disabilities  as  now  weigh  upon  the  de- 
sirable members  of  the  community,  especially  of  the 
more  prudent  sort. 

For  instance,  it  was  recently  pointed  out  by  a  cor- 
respondent of  the  Morning  Post  that  in  Great  Britain, 
despite  the  alarm  caused  by  the  decreasing  marriage- 
rate,  no  one  has  protested  against  — 

i 

".  .  .  the  tax  which  the  propertied  middle  classes  have  to 
pay  on  marriage.  ...  To  take  a  few  instances.  Two  per- 
sons each  having  £160  a  year  marry.  Previous  to  marriage  they 
were  exempt  from  income  tax ;  after  marriage  they  pay  £6  per 
annum.  Two  persons  each  having  £400  a  year  pay  £18  before 
and  £30  after  marriage.  Similarly  the  additional  income  tax 
payable  on  marriage  by  people  each  having  £600  a  year  is  £9,  by 
those  having  £1,200  a  year  £30,  and  by  those  having  £2,000  a 
year  £50.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  our  legislators  arrived  at  this 
result  unless  they  started  to  average  the  incomes  of  married 
people  and  then  forgot  to  divide  by  two.  .  .  .  If,  as  I  con- 
tend, a  man  and  his  wife  should  be  counted  as  two  people,  not 
one,  should  not  children  also  be  counted  in  any  scheme  of  grad- 
uated taxation,  and  an  income  be  divided  by  the  number  of  per- 
sons it  has  to  support  in  order  to  fix  the  rate  at  which  the  tax 
is  to  be  charged?  It  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  a  man  with 
a  wife  and  six  children  is  as  well  off  on  £1,000  a  year  as  a 
bachelor  with  the  same  income.  It  is,  I  believe,  acknowledged 
that  the  moderately  well-off  professional  classes  marry  later  and 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  201 

have  fewer  children  than  the  wage-earners,  and  I  think  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  special  burden  they  have  to  bear  is 
a  material  influence  contributing  to  this  result.  Thus,  while  we 
are  deploring  the  decadence  of  the  race,  the  State  is  doing  what 
it  can  to  discourage  marriage  in  a  class  whose  children  would  in 
all  probability  prove  its  most  valued  citizens." 

But  it  is  in  negative  eugenics  that  we  can  accom- 
plish most  at  this  stage,  and  in  so  doing  can  steadily 
educate  public  opinion,  the  professional  jesters  not- 
withstanding. There  is  here  a  field  for  action  which 
does  not  demand  a  great  revolution  in  the  popular 
point  of  view ;  and,  further,  does  not  require  us  to  wait 
for  certainty  until  the  facts  and  laws  of  heredity  have 
been  much  further  elucidated.  The  services  which  a 
conscious  race-culture,  thus  directed,  may  even  now 
accomplish,  can  scarcely  be  over-estimated;  and  even 
if  we  cannot  reach  the  public  heart  at  once  we  can 
reach  the  public  head  by  means  of  the  public  pocket  — 
which  will  benefit  obviously  and  greatly  when  these 
proposals  are  carried  out.  As  Thoreau  observes,  for 
a  thousand  who  are  lopping  off  the  branches  of  an 
evil  there  is  but  one  striking  at  its  roots.  If  we 
strike  at  the  roots  of  certain  grave  and  costly  evils 
of  the  present  day,  we  shall  abundantly  demonstrate 
that  this  is  a  matter  of  the  most  vital  economy. 

THE  DEAF  AND  DUMB. —  We  might  begin  with  the 
case  of  the  deaf  and  dumb,  since  the  facts  here  are  ut- 
terly beyond  dispute.  The  condition  known  as  deaf- 
mutism  is  congenital  or  due  to  innate  defect  in  about 
one-half  of  all  the  cases  in  Great  Britain.  Says  Dr. 
Love,1  "In  every  institution  examples  may  be  found 
of  deaf-mute  children  who  have  one  or  two  deaf  par- 

1  Encyclopaedia  Medico,  vol.  ii.,  Article  "Deaf-Mutism." 


202     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ents  or  grandparents,  and  of  two  or  more  deaf-mute 
children  belonging  to  one  family."  A  recent  report 
from  Japan  is  of  a  similar  order,  and  the  evidence 
might  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  The  obvious  con- 
clusion that  the  inherently  deaf  should  not  marry  "  is 
generally  conceded  by  those  who  work  amongst  the 
deaf,  but  the  present  arrangements  for  the  education 
of  the  deaf,  and  their  management  in  missions  and  in- 
stitutes for  the  deaf  during  the  period  of  adolescence, 
is  eminently  fitted  to  encourage  union  between  the  con- 
genitally  deaf.  If  not  during  the  school  period,  at  least 
during  the  period  of  adolescence,  everything  should  be 
done  to  discourage  the  association  of  the  deaf  and 
dumb  with  each  other,  and  the  danger  of  their  meet- 
ing with  those  similarly  afflicted  should  be  constantly 
kept  before  the  congenitally  deaf  by  those  in  charge 
of  them."  Dr.  Love  quotes  the  following  newspaper 
report :  "  At  an  inquest  yesterday,  on  Will  Earnshaw, 
59,  a  St.  Pancras  saddler,  it  was  stated  that  the  rela- 
tives could  not  identify  the  body,  as  the  wife  and  sister 
were  blind,  deaf  and  dumb,  and  that  the  four  Children 
were  deaf  and  dumb.  The  deceased  was  deaf  and 
dumb,  and  was  so  when  he  was  married." 

THE  FEEBLE-MINDED. —  The  case  of  the  feeble- 
minded is  of  course  parallel.  The  problem  would  be 
at  once  reduced  to  negligible  proportions  if  all  cases 
of  feeble-mindedness  were  dealt  with  as  they  should 
be.  These  unfortunate  people  might  lead  quite  happy 
lives,  the  utmost  be  done  for  their  feeble  capacities, 
the  supreme  demands  of  the  law  of  love  be  completely 
but  providently  complied  with.  The  feeble-minded 
girl  might  be  protected  from  herself  and  from  others 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  203 

—  her  fate  otherwise  is  often  too  deplorable  for  defini- 
tion —  and  the  interests  of  the  future  be  not  compro- 
mised. These  two  words  were  written  whilst  awaiting 
the  long  overdue  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on 
this  subject  —  which  abundantly  confirms  them.  The 
proportion  of  the  mentally  defective  in  Great  Britain 
is  now  0.83  per  cent. :  and  it  is  doubtless  rising  yearly. 
Only  by  the  recognition  and  application  of  negative 
eugenics  can  this  evil  be  cured.  I  have  elsewhere  1 
discussed  the  supposed  objection  which  will  be  raised 
in  the  name  of  "  liberty  "  by  persons  who  think  in 
words  instead  of  realities.  The  right  care  of  the 
feeble-minded  involves  the  greatest  happiness  and  lib- 
erty and  self -development  possible  for  them.  The  in- 
terests of  the  individual  and  the  race  are  one.  What 
liberty  has  the  feeble-minded  prostitute,  such  as  our 
streets  are  filled  with? 

THE  INSANE. —  As  regards  obvious  insanity,  the 
same  principles  of  negative  eugenics  must  be  enforced. 
It  is  probably  fair  to  say  that  the  whole  trend  of  mod- 
ern research  has  been  to  accentuate  the  importance,  if 
not  indeed  the  indispensableness,  of  the  inherent  or 
inherited  factor  in  the  production  of  insanity.  Yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  trend  of  treatment  of  the  insane 
has  undoubtedly  been  towards  permitting  them  more 
liberty,  sometimes  of  the  kind  which  the  principles  of 
race-culture  must  condemn.  It  is  well,  of  course,  that 
we  should  be  humane  in  our  treatment  of  the  insane. 
It  is  well  that  curative  medicine  should  do  its  utmost 
for  them,  and  it  seems  well,  at  first  sight,  that  the  pro- 

1  In  a  lecture,  "  The  Obstacles  to  Eugenics,"  delivered  before 
the  Sociological  Society,  March  8,  1909. 


204      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

portion  of  discharges  from  asylums  on  the  score  of 
recovery  should  be  as  high  as  it  is.  But  at  this  point 
the  possibility  of  the  gravest  criticism  evidently  arises. 
I  have  no  intention  whatever  of  exposing  the  question 
of  race-culture  to  legitimate  criticism  by  laying  down 
dogmatically  any  doctrines  as  to  the  perpetual  incar- 
ceration of  insane  persons,  including  those  who  have 
been,  but  are  not  now,  insane.  Pope  was  of  course  right 
when  he  hinted  at  the  nearness  of  the  relation  between 
certain  forms  of  genius  and  certain  forms  of  insanity. 
It  may  well  be  that  if  we  could  provide  a  fit  environ- 
ment we  might  welcome  the  children  of  some  of  those, 
highly  and  perhaps  uniquely  gifted  in  brain,  who,  un- 
der the  stress  of  the  ordinary  environment  of  modern 
life,  have  broken  down  for  greater  or  longer  periods. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  forms  of  insanity  which, 
beyond  all  dispute,  should  utterly  preclude  their  vic- 
tims from  parenthood.  As  a  result  of  recent  contro- 
versies it  seems  on  the  whole  probable,  if  not  certain, 
that  the  apparent  persistent  increases  in  the  propor- 
tion of  the  insane  in  civilized  countries  generally  dur- 
ing many  years  past,  is  a  real  increase,  and  not  due 
simply  to  such  factors  as  more  stringent  certification 
or  increase  of  public  confidence  in  lunatic  asylums. 
If,  then,  there  be  in  process  a  real  increase  in  the  pro- 
portion of  the  insane,  who  will  question  that  no  time 
should  be  lost  in  ascertaining  the  extent  —  un- 
doubtedly most  considerable  —  to  which  the  principles 
of  negative  eugenics  can  be  invoked  in  order  to  arrest 
it? 

As  regards  epilepsy  and  epileptic  insanity  there  can 
be  no  question.     There  is,  of  course,  such  a  thing  as 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  205 

acquired  epilepsy,  and  we  may  even  assume  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument  that  no  inherent  and  therefore 
transmissible  factor  of  predisposition  is  involved  in 
such  cases.  Yet,  wholly  excluding  them,  there  re- 
mains the  vast  majority  of  cases  in  which  epilepsy  and 
epileptic  insanity  are  unquestionably  germinal  in  or- 
igin, and  therefore  transmissible.  The  principle  of 
negative  eugenics  cannot  too  soon  be  applied  here. 

THE  CRIMINAL. —  When  we  come  to  consider  the 
question  of  crime  the  cautious  and  responsible  eugenist 
is  bound  to  be  wary  —  chiefly,  perhaps,  because  such 
a  vast  amount  of  sheer  nonsense  has  been  written  on 
this  subject.  The  whole  question,  of  course,  is  the 
old  one,  is  it  heredity  or  environment  that  produces 
the  criminal?  If  and  when  it  is  the  environment, 
race-culture  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  since 
the  merely  acquired  criminality  is,  as  we  know,  not  in 
any  degree  transmissible.  If  the  criminal,  however, 
is  always  or  ever  a  "  born  criminal,"  then  the  eugenist 
is  intimately  concerned.  At  the  one  extreme  are  those 
who  will  tell  us  that  the  idea  of  crime  is  a  purely  con- 
ventional one,  that  the  criminal  is  the  product  of  cir- 
cumstances or  environment,  and  that  we,  in  his  case, 
would  have  done  likewise.  The  remedy  for  crime, 
then,  is  education.  It  is  pointed  out,  however,  that 
education  merely  modifies  the  variety  of  crime.  There 
is  less  murder  but  more  swindling,  and  so  forth. 
Then,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  declare 
that  criminality  is  innate,  and  that  if  we  are  to  make 
an  end  of  crime  we  must  attach  surgeons  to  our  gaols ; 
or  at  any  rate  must  extend  the  principle  of  the  life- 
sentence. 


206      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Doubtless,  the  truth  lies  between  these  two  extremes. 
In  the  face  of  the  work  of  Lombroso  and  his  school, 
exaggerated  though  their  conclusions  often  be,  we  can- 
not dispute  the  existence  of  the  born  criminal,  and  the 
criminal  type.  There  are  undoubtedly  many  such 
persons  in  modern  society.  There  is  an  abundance  of 
crime  which  no  education,  practiced  or  imaginable, 
would  eliminate.  Present  day  psychology  and  medi- 
cine, and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  ordinary  common- 
sense,  can  readily  distinguish  cases  at  both  extremes 
— -  the  mattoid  or  semi-insane  criminal  at  one  end,  and 
the  decent  citizen  who  yields  to  exceptional  temptation 
at  the  other  end.  Thus  even  though  there  remain  a 
vast  number  of  cases  where  our  knowledge  is  insuffi- 
cient, we  could  accomplish  great  things  already  if  the 
born  criminal,  the  habitual  criminal  and  his  like  were 
rationally  treated  by  society,  on  the  lines  of  the  re- 
formatory, the  labor  colony,  indeterminate  sentences, 
and  such  other  methods  as  aim,  successfully  or  un- 
successfully, at  the  reform  of  the  individual,  whilst 
incidentally  protecting  the  race.  Here,  as  in  some 
other  cases,  the  nature  of  the  environment  provided 
for  their  children  by  certain  sections  of  the  community 
may  be  taken  into  account  when  we  decide  whether 
they  are  to  be  prohibited  from  parenthood.  Hered- 
ity or  no  heredity,  we  cannot  desire  to  have  children 
born  into  the  alcoholic  home ;  heredity  or  no  heredity, 
we  cannot  desire  to  have  children  born  into  the  crim- 
inal environment.  In  Great  Britain  we  are  no  longer 
to  manufacture  criminals  in  hundreds  by  sending  chil- 
dren to  prison.  It  remains  to  be  seen,  after  the  practi- 
cal disappearance  of  the  made  criminal,  what  proper- 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  207 

tion  of  crime  is  really  due  to  the  born  criminal.  He, 
when  found,  must  certainly  be  dealt  with  on  the  lines 
indicated  by  our  principles.1 

So  far  we  have  considered  exclusively  diseases  and 
disorders  of  the  brain,  the  question  of  alcoholism  be- 
ing deferred  to  a  special  chapter.  When  we  come  to 
other  forms  of  defect  or  disease  we  find  a  long  grad- 
uation of  instances:  at  the  one  extreme  being  cases 
where  the  fact  of  disastrous  inheritance  is  palpable  and 
inevitable,  whilst  at  the  other  extreme  are  kinds  of 
disease  and  defect  as  to  which  the  share  of  heredity  is 
still  very  uncertain.  In  some  instances,  then,  the  eu- 
genist  is  bound  to  lay  down  the  most  emphatic  proposi- 
tions as,  for  instance,  that  parenthood  on  the  part  of 
men  suffering  from  certain  diseases  is  and  should  and 
must  be  regarded  and  treated  as  a  crime  of  the  most 
heinous  order :  whilst  in  other  instances  all  we  can  say 
is  that  here  is  a  direction  in  which  more  knowledge  is 
needed. 

Some  particular  cases  may  be  referred  to. 

The  diseases  known  as  Daltonism  or  color-blindness, 
and  haemophilia  or  the  "  bleeding  disease/'  are  cer- 
tainly hereditary.  The  sufferers  are  usually  male,  but 
the  disease  is  commonly  transmitted  by  their  daugh- 
ters (who  do  not  themselves  suffer)  to  their  male  de- 
scendants. As  regards  color-blindness,  the  defect  is 
evidently  insufficient  to  concern  the  eugenist,  but 
haemophilia  is  a  serious  disease  the  transmission  of 

1  Since  these  words  were  written  there  has  been  passed  the 
"Prevention  of  Crimes  Act,"  which  is  the  first  attempt  in  this 
country  to  apply  the  elementary  truths  of  the  subject  in  legis- 
lation. As  an  essentially  eugenic  proposal  it  is  to  be  heartily  wel- 
comed. 


208      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

which  should  not  be  excused.  It  may  seem  hard  to 
assert  that  the  daughter  of  a  haemophilic  father  should 
not  become  a  mother,  she  herself  being  free  from  all 
disease.  But  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  possi- 
bility of  this  hardship  depends  upon  the  fact  that  a 
haemophilic  man  has  become  a  father,  as  he  should 
not  have  done. 

This  point,  as  to  the  amount  of  hardship  involved 
in  the  observance  of  negative  race-culture,  has  always 
to  be  kept  in  mind.  If  negative  eugenics  were  gener- 
ally enforced  upon  a  given  generation  some  persons 
would,  of  course,  suffer  in  greater  or  less  degree  from 
the  disabilities  imposed  upon  them.  But  their  number 
would  depend  upon  the  neglect  of  eugenics  by  previous 
generations,  and  thereafter  the  number  of  those  upon 
whom  our  principles  pressed  hardly  would  be  relatively 
minute. 

EUGENICS  AND  TUBERCULOSIS. —  It  would  not  be 
correct  to  say  that  the  old  view  of  consumption  re- 
garded it  as  hereditary.  In  this  and  a  hundred  other 
matters,  medical,  astronomical,  or  what  we  please,  if 
we  go  back  to  the  Arabic  students,  or  further,  to  the 
Greeks,  we  are  lucky  enough  to  find  sound  observa- 
tion and  reasoning.  Many  quotations  might  be  made 
to  show  that  the  infectious  nature  of  tuberculosis  was 
recognized  long  ago,  just  as  the  revolution  of  the  earth 
around  the  sun  was  recognized  a  millenium  and  a  half 
before  Copernicus.  But  the  view  of  our  more  im- 
mediate fathers  was  that  tuberculosis  is  a  hereditary 
degeneration,  and  the  medical  profession  proclaimed 
with  no  uncertain  sound  the  hopeless  and  paralyzing 
doctrine  that  an  almost  certain  doom  hung  over  the 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  209 

children  of  the  consumptive.  Then,  in  memorable 
succession,  came  Villemin,  Pasteur,  and  lastly  Koch, 
with  his  discovery  of  the  bacillus  in  1882.  The  doc- 
trine was  then  altered  in  its  statement.  There  was,  of 
course,  no  choice  in  the  matter,  since  it  was  easy  to 
show  that  not  one  new-born  baby  in  millions  harbors 
a  tubercle  bacillus;  so  all-but-miraculous  and,  rightly 
considered,  beautiful  are  the  ante-natal  defenses.  It 
was  taught,  then,  that  we  inherit  a  predisposition  from 
consumptive  parents,  that  the  bacillus  is  ubiquitous, 
and  that  variations  in  susceptibility  determine  the  inci- 
dence of  the  disease  in  one  and  not  in  another.  It  was 
lightly  assumed  (simply  through  what  may  be  called 
the  inertia  of  belief)  that  these  variations  in  suscepti- 
bility were  hereditary;  but  we  are  wholly  without  evi- 
dence that  the  hereditary  factor  counts  for  anything 
substantial,  even  assuming  that  it  appreciably  exists 
at  all.  These  differences,  so  far  from  being  inherent, 
may  be  most  palpably  acquired.  Under-  feeding,  alcohol, 
and  influenza,  let  us  say,  will  adequately  prepare  any 
human  soul.  Furthermore,  we  are  learning  that  the 
bacillus  is  nothing  like  so  ubiquitous  as  used  to  be  sup- 
posed. Tuberculosis  is  now  sometimes  described  as 
a  dwelling  disease.  It  might  probably  be  described 
with  still  more  accuracy  as  a  bed-room  disease,  or  a 
bed-room  and  public-house  disease.  It  has  been  evi- 
dent for  many  years  past  that  the  more  we  learned 
about  tuberculosis  the  less  did  we  talk  about  heredity ; 
and  in  one  of  the  most  recent  authoritative  pronounce- 
ments *  upon  the  subject,  the  lecturer  did  not  even  al- 
lude to  heredity  at  all.  Many  readers  will  be  up  in 

1  Dr.  Bulstrode's  Lecture  to  the  Royal  Institution,  May  15,  1908. 


2io     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

arms  at  once  with  apparently  contrary  instances;  and 
much  labor  may  be  spent  in  the  mathematical  analysis 
of  statistical  data  —  as  that  of  cases  where  a  father 
and  a  child  have  tuberculosis.  But  suppose  the  fa- 
ther kissed  the  child  ?  What  have  you  proved  regard- 
ing heredity?  No  mathematics  can  get  more  out  of 
the  data  than  is  in  them. 

The  statistics  designed  to  measure  the  degree  of  in- 
heritance in  this  disease  labor  under  the  cardinal  fal- 
lacy of  assuming  that  where  father  and  son  suffer,  the 
case  is  one  of  inheritance,  and  then  proceed  to  measure 
the  average  extent  of  his  inheritance.  These  statis- 
tics are  so  much  waste  paper  and  ink  —  assuming 
what  they  claim  to  prove.  They  do  not  allow  for  the 
fact  that  the  child  is  very  frequently  exposed  in  grave 
measure  to  infection  by  the  parent ;  they  ignore  wholly, 
indeed,  the  entire  question  of  exposure  to  infection, 
both  as  regards  its  extent  in  time  and  the  virulence  of 
the  infection  in  question.  At  the  present  day,  discus- 
sions as  to  the  inheritance  of  consumption  and  tuber- 
culosis in  general  are  not  fit  for  practical  application : 
and  a  practical  disservice  is  rendered  by  those  who 
seek  to  divert  public  attention  from  the  removable  en- 
vironmental causes  upon  which  the  disease  mainly  de- 
pends. We  know,  for  instance,  that  the  incidence  of 
tuberculosis  is  directly  proportional  to  over-crowding: 
this  being  universally  true,  we  must  work  to  abolish 
over-crowding  and  to  provide  fresh  air  for  every  one 
by  day  and  by  night.  When  that  is  done,  alcoholism 
disposed  of,  and  our  milk-supply  purified,  we  may  turn 
to  the  question  of  heredity:  but  the  incidence  of  the 


NEGATIVE  EUGENICS  211 

i 

disease  will  then  present  merely  trivial  instead  of  the 
present  appalling  proportions. 

It  is  not  asserted  that  inherent  variations  in  suscepti- 
bility to  this  disease  are  not  existent.  The  case  would 
be  unique  if  it  were  so.  But  it  is  asserted  that  the 
more  we  learn  of  the  disease  the  less  importance  we  at- 
tach to  this  factor,  and  the  more  surely  do  we  see  that 
the  three  syllables  constituting  the  word  "  infection  " 
substantially  suffice  to  dispose  of  all  the  confident  dog- 
mas with  which  we  are  too  familiar.  One  is  almost 
tempted  to  quote  a  forcible  phrase  of  Mill's,  and  say 
that,  given  this  point  of  view,  "  once  questioned,  they 
are  doomed."  The  only  method  of  accurately  study- 
ing the  question  of  inherited  predisposition  would  be 
by  comparative  study  of  the  resistance  of  new-born 
infants  as  measured  by  their  "  opsonic  index  " —  which 
may  be  (very  roughly)  described  as  the  measur-e  of 
the  power  of  the  white  cells  of  the  blood  to  eat  up 
tubercle  bacilli.1  Nor  will  even  this  method  be  free 
from  fallacy. 

The  present  writer  believes  that  eugenics  is  going 
to  save  the  world ;  that  there  is  no  study  of  such  urgent 
and  practical  importance  as  that  of  heredity;  that  if 
we  get  the  right  people  born  and  the  wrong  people 
not  born,  forms  of  government  and  such  questions  will 
be  left  even  without  fools  to  contest  regarding  them. 
Thus  he  has  every  bias  in  favor  of  emphasizing  the 
hereditary  factor  in  tuberculosis.  The  fact  will  at 
least  not  discredit  the  foregoing  views,  which  are  in 

1  This  suggestion,  first  made  by  the  present  writer  in  March, 
1908,  and  in  the  paper  referred  to  is,  I  believe,  to  be  the  subject 
of  an  official  inquiry. 


212      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

absolute  accord  with  those  of  Dr.  Newsholme,  our 
leading  authority,  in  his  recent  work  upon  the  sub- 
ject. Nothing  need  here  be  said  about  cancer,  the  best 
and  most  recent  evidence  tending  to  show  that  the 
disease  is  not  hereditary. 

The  foregoing  may  briefly  suffice  to  illustrate  the 
general  proposition  that  negative  eugenics  will  seek 
to  define  the  diseases  and  defects  which  are  really  he- 
reditary, to  name  those  the  transmission  of  which  is 
already  certainly  known  to  occur,  and  to  raise  the 
average  of  the  race  by  interfering  as  far  as  may  be 
with  the  parenthood  of  persons  suffering  from  these 
transmissible  disorders.  Only  thus  can  certain  of  the 
gravest  evils  of  society,  as,  for  instance,  feeble-minded- 
ness,  insanity,  and  crime  due  to  inherited  degeneracy, 
be  suppressed :  and  if  race-culture  were  absolutely  in- 
capable of  effecting  anything  whatever  in  the  way  of 
increasing  the  fertility  of  the  worthiest  classes  and 
individuals,  its  services  in  the  negative  direction  here 
briefly  outlined  would  still  be  of  incalculable  value, 
No  other  proposal  will  save  so  much  life,  present  and 
to  come;  and  save  so  much  gold  in  doing  so,  as  one 
would  insist  if  one  were  writing  a  Eugenic  Primer 
for  Politicians.  To  this  policy  we  shall  most  certainly 
come :  but  here,  as  in  other  cases,  I  trust  far  more  in  the 
influence  of  an  educated  public  opinion  than  in  legisla- 
tion; though  there  are  certain  forms  of  transmissible 
disease,  interfering  in  no  way  with  the  responsibility  of 
the  individual,  the  transmission  of  which  should  be 
visited  with  the  utmost  rigor  of  the  law  and  regarded 
as  utterly  criminal  no  less  than  sheer  murder. 


CHAPTER  XII 
SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE 

HISTORICAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONTROL  OF  MARRIAGE: 
WESTERMARCK'S  EVIDENCE. —  To  begin  with  the  most 
recent  refutation  of  the  doctrine  that  marriage  se- 
lection is  uncontrollable,  one  may  quote  from  the  in- 
augural lecture  delivered  by  Dr.  Westermarck  in  De- 
cember, 1907,  on  his  appointment  as  Professor  of 
Sociology  in  the  University  of  London.  He  said: — 

"  For  instance,  when  the  suggestion  has  been  made  that  the 
law  should  step  in  and  prevent  unfit  individuals  from  contracting 
marriage,  the  objection  has  at  once  been  raised  that  any  such 
measure  would  be  impracticable.  Now  we  find  that  many  sav- 
ages have  tried  the  experiment  and  succeeded.  Mr.  Im  Thurn 
tells  us  that  among  the  wild  Indians  of  Guiana,  a  man,  before  he 
is  allowed  to  choose  a  wife,  must  prove  that  he  can  do  a  man's 
work  and  is  able  to  support  himself  and  his  family.  In  various 
Bechuana  and  Kaffir  tribes,  according  to  Livingstone,  a  youth 
is  prohibited  from  marrying  until  he  has  killed  a  rhinoceros. 
Among  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  no  one  can  marry  until  he  has  in 
his  possession  a  certain  number  of  human  skulls.  Among  the 
Arabs  of  Upper  Egypt  a  man  must  undergo  an  ordeal  of  whip- 
ping by  the  relatives  of  his  bride,  in  order  to  test  his  courage; 
and  if  he  wishes  to  be  considered  worth  having,  he  must  receive 
the  chastisement,  which  is  sometimes  exceedingly  severe,  with  an 
expression  of  enjoyment. 

"  I  do  not  say  that  these  particular  methods  are  worthy  of 
slavish  imitation,  but  the  principle  underlying  them  is  certainly 
excellent,  and  especially  the  fact  that  they  are  recognized  and 
enforced  by  custom  shows  that  it  has  been  quite  possible  among 
many  people  to  prohibit  certain  unfit  individuals  from  marrying. 

213 


214      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

The  question  naturally  arises  whether,  after  all,  something  of  the 
same  kind  may  not  be  possible  among  ourselves." 

MR.  GALTON'S  EVIDENCE. —  But  Mr.  Galton  him- 
self, with  his  characteristic  thoroughness,  and  in  full 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  this  young  science  must 
meet  ignorant  as  well  as  other  objections,  read  before 
the  Sociological  Society  *  a  paper  entitled  "  Restric- 
tions in  Marriage/'  with  special  reference  to  the  ob- 
jection "  that  human  nature  would  never  brook  inter- 
ference with  the  freedom  of  marriage.  .  .  .  How 
far  have  marriage  restrictions  proved  effective,  when 
sanctified  by  the  religion  of  the  time,  by  custom  and 
by  law?  I  appeal  from  armchair  criticism  to  histor- 
ical facts."  Mr.  Galton  then  proceeds  to  quote  seven 
forms  of  restriction  in  marriage  which  have  actually 
been  practiced  —  monogamy,  endogamy,  exogamy, 
Australian  marriages,  taboo,  prohibited  degrees  and 
celibacy.  He  shows  how  powerful  under  each  of  these 
heads  is  the  influence  of  "  immaterial  motives  "  upon 
marriage  selection,  how  they  may  all  become  hallowed 
by  religion,  accepted  as  custom  and  enforced  by  law. 
"  Persons  who  are  born  under  their  various  rules, 
live  under  them  without  any  objection.  They  are 
unconscious  of  their  restrictions  as  we  are  unaware  of 
the  tension  of  the  atmosphere."  In  many  cases  the 
establishment  of  monogamy  and  the  prohibition  of 
polygamy  "  has  been  due  not  to  any  natural  instinct 
against  the  practice,  but  to  consideration  of  social 
well-being."  It  was  penal  for  a  Greek  to  marry  a 
barbarian,  for  a  Roman  patrician  to  marry  a  plebeian, 
for  a  Hindoo  of  one  caste  to  marry  one  of  another 

1  Sociological  Papers  (Macmillan,  1905),  p.  3. 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      215 

caste,  and  so  forth.  Similar  restrictions  have  been 
enforced  in  multitudes  of  communities,  even  under 
the  penalty  of  death."  Cases  from  ancient  Jewish 
law  are  quoted,  and,  to  take  a  very  different  case, 
that  of  the  marriage  rule  amongst  the  Australian  bush- 
men,  it  is  shown  that  "  the  cogency  of  this  rule  is 
due  to  custom,  religion  and  law,  and  is  so  strong  that 
nearly  all  Australians  would  be  horrified  at  the  idea  of 
breaking  it."  Passing  further  on,  one  need  offer  no 
excuse  for  quoting,  regarding  marriage  in  general, 
the  following  words  of  the  founder  of  eugenics: — 
"  The  institution  of  marriage  as  now  sanctified  by  re- 
ligion and  safeguarded  by  law  in  the  more  highly 
civilized  nations,  may  not  be  ideally  perfect,  nor  may 
it  be  universally  accepted  in  future  times,  but  it  is  the 
best  that  has  hitherto  been  devised  for  the  parties  pri- 
marily concerned,  for  their  children,  for  home  life, 
and  for  society" 

Mr.  Galton  then  proceeds  to  show  how  extensive 
are  the  restrictions  in  marriage  already  recognized  and 
practiced  amongst  ourselves  and  quite  contentedly 
accepted.  He  proves  also  that  our  objection  to  mar- 
riage within  prohibited  degrees  depends  mainly  upon 
what  he  calls  immaterial  considerations,  and  adds  "  it 
is  quite  conceivable  that  a  non-eugenic  marriage  should 
hereafter  excite  no  less  loathing  than  that  of  a  brother 
and  sister  would  do  now."  Then,  in  allusion  to  the 
possibility  "  of  a  whole-hearted  acceptance  of  eugenics 
as  a  national  religion  .  .  .  the  thorough  convic- 
tion by  a  nation  that  no  worthier  object  exists  for 
man  than  the  improvement  of  his  own  race,"  Mr. 
Galton  shows  from  the  history  of  conventual  life  what 


2i6     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

abundant  evidence  there  is  "  of  the  power  of  re- 
ligious authority  in  directing  and  withstanding  the 
tendencies  of  human  nature  towards  freedom  in  mar- 
riage." This  paper  was  discussed  by  no  less  than 
twenty-six  authorities,  British  and  Continental,  and 
in  his  reply  Mr.  Gal  ton  observes  that  not  one  of  them 
impugns  his  main  conclusion  "  that  history  tells  how 
restrictions  in  marriage,  even  of  an  excessive  kind, 
have  been  contentedly  accepted  very  widely,  under  the 
guidance  of  what  I  called  immaterial  motives." 
Lastly,  we  may  quote  Mr.  Galton's  admirable  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  stages  of  love,  "  that  of  slight 
inclination  and  that  of  falling  thoroughly  into  love, 
for  it  is  the  first  of  these  rather  than  the  second  that 
I  hope  the  popular  feeling  of  the  future  will  success- 
fully resist.  Every  match-making  mother  appre- 
ciates the  difference.  If  a  girl  is  taught  to  look  upon 
a  class  of  men  as  tabooed,  whether  owing  to  rank, 
creed,  connections  or  other  causes,  she  does  not  re- 
gard them  as  possible  husbands  and  turns  her  thoughts 
elsewhere.  The  proverbial  '  Mrs.  Grundy '  has  enor- 
mous influence  in  checking  marriages  she  considers 
indiscreet." 

Surely  all  the  foregoing  sufficies  to  show,  first, 
that  eugenics  or  race-culture  is  compatible  with  marri- 
age, and  secondly,  that  it  is  compatible  with  the  love  of 
the  sexes  —  two  conclusions  of  the  most  cardinal  and 
fundamental  importance.  This  importance  it  is,  and 
the  obstinate  stupidity  of  critics  of  a  kind,  which  must 
excuse  me  for  having  devoted  so  much  space  to 
propositions  which  the  thoughtful  reader  would  nat- 
urally have  arrived  at  for  himself. 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      217 

THE  PRESENT  INFLUENCE  OF  MARRIAGE  ON  RACE- 
CULTURE. —  We  must  turn  now  from  the  past  to  the 
present  aspect  of  the  question,  viz.,  the  actual  relation 
of  marriage  to  eugenics  at  the  present  day.  Its  nature 
is  very  much  disputed.  On  the  one  hand,  there  are 
those  who  see  in  our  present  methods  what  Jias  else- 
where been  called  reversed  selection  —  that  is  to  say, 
an  anti-eugenic  process,  involving  the  mating  of  the 
least  desirable.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
conservative  critics  who,  starting  from  a  general  op- 
position to  any  new  thing,  such  as  eugenics,  maintain 
that  we  are  doing  very  well  as  we  are,  and  that,  with- 
out any  conscious  interference,  as  they  call  it  —  as  if 
there  were  no  such  interference  —  selection  by  mar- 
riage is  actually  working  for  .the  eugenic  end.  Dr. 
Maudsley,  for  instance,  is  "  not  sure  but  that  nature 
in  its  own  blind  impulsive  way  does  not  manage  things 
better  than  we  can  by  any  light  of  reason:  "  an 
astounding  opinion  from  the  veteran  pioneer  who 
has  devoted  so  many  decades  to  successfully  modify- 
ing natural  processes  by  the  light  of  his  own  splendid 
reason ! 

This  most  important  question,  as  to  what  is  actually 
happening  within  the  limits  of  marriage,  may  legit- 
imately be  regarded  as  substantially  equivalent  to  the 
question  of  the  extent  and  nature  of  selection,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  as  it  occurs  in  society  to-day.  If  we  re- 
member that  an  overwhelming  proportion  of  children 
are  born  in  wedlock,  that  the  death-rate  of  illegitimate 
children  is  gigantic,  whilst  the  illegitimate  birth-rate 
is  generally  falling,  we  shall  be  fully  entitled  to  as- 
sume that  the  answer  to  the  one  question  is  the  an- 


218      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

swer  to  the  other;  in  a  word,  if  under  the  present 
conditions  of  selection  for  marriage  we  find  a  eugenic 
tendency  or  an  anti-eugenic  tendency  or  a  mere  neu- 
trality, the  answer  will  be,  on  the  whole,  the  approx- 
imate answer  to  the  larger  question  as  to  the  present 
state  of  selection  for  parenthood  and  therefore  of  our 
racial  prospects,  marriage  or  no  marriage.  The  con- 
clusion which  we  shall  maintain  is  that  both  forms  of 
selection  occur  in  society  to-day  —  the  selection  of  the 
desirable  and  the  selection  of  the  undesirable.  We 
shall  go  ludicrously  wrong  if  we  agree,  with  one  party, 
that  society  in  general  to-day  exhibits  reversed  selec- 
tion; or,  with  the  second  party,  that  everything  is  go- 
ing on  admirably  on  the  whole;  or  with  the  third 
party,  which  jumbles  the  whole  mass  of  facts  and 
tendencies,  and  declares  that  there  is  no  process  of 
selection  of  any  kind  occurring  in  society  to-day  — 
an  opinion  which,  in  the  face  of  disease,  the  enormous 
premature  death-rate,  and  the  fact  that  whilst  vast 
numbers  of  women  are  unmarried,  the  choice  of 
women  for  marriage  does  not  occur  by  lot,  beggars 
comment;  is  a  girl  with  a  birth-mark  covering  half 
her  face,  or  a  nose  destroyed  by  transmissible  disease, 
as  likely  to  marry  as  a  "  beauty "  ?  If  not,  surely 
we  are  actually  selected  to-day  for  beauty  and  therefore 
for  whatever  beauty  depends  upon  —  for  instance, 
health.  But  really  it  cannot  be  necessary  to  deal  se- 
riously with  the  proposition  that  no  selection  occurs  in 
society  to-day. 

Let  us  attempt  to  state  clearly  the  point  at  issue. 
There  is  granted,  in  the  first  place,  that  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  all  parenthood,  in  civilized  and  unciv- 


I 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      219 

ilized  communities  alike,  occurs  within  the  limits  of 
marriage;  to  which  may  be  added  that,  owing  to  the 
excessive  death-rate  of  illegitimate  children,  the  pro- 
portion of  effective  parenthood,  so  to  say,  that  occurs 
within  the  limits  of  marriage  is  even  larger;  and  this 
intervention  of  marriage,  and  any  selection  that  may 
be  involved  in  it,  steadily  recur  from  generation  to 
generation.  Thus  even  those  born  outside  wedlock 
will  nevertheless  be  selected  for  parenthood,  on  their 
own  part,  mainly  by  the  selective  factors  in  marriage. 
SELECTION  BY  MARRIAGE  HAS  THE  LAST  WORD. — 
It  follows,  then,  though  the  fact  is  almost  constantly 
ignored  by  eugenic  writers,  that  selection  by  marriage 
in  effect  has  the  last  word.  Thus  supposing  that  all 
other  forms  of  selection,  depending  upon,  for  instance, 
the  various  causes  of  death  amongst  the  immature, 
were  what  we  call  reversed  selection;  or  supposing 
that,  as  is  actually  the  case,  society  permitted  large 
numbers  of  so-called  unfit  to  survive, —  even  so, 
marriage  selection  (if  it  meant  that  many  or  most 
of  these  were  rejected  by  it)  would  control  and  correct 
the  dangerous  tendency.  On  all  hands,  scientific  and 
unscientific,  we  have  writers  telling  us  of  the  disas- 
trous multiplication  of  the  unfit.  Such  multiplication 
does  occur  and  is  disastrous.  Yet  hitherto  they  have 
failed  to  recognize  that  if  —  to  take  an  extreme  case 
—  all  these  unfit  are  rejected  by  marriage  selection 
-  that  is  to  say,  do  not  themselves  become  parents  — 
this  alarming  multiplication  is,  after  all,  not  a  persist- 
ent factor  in  racial  change,  but  merely  the  throwing 
up  or  throwing  aside  in  each  generation  of  a  certain 
number  of  undesirables  whose  breed  gets  no  further. 


220      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Of  course  there  would  be  much  less  urgent  need  for 
eugenics  if  this  last  were  wholly  and  happily  the  case. 
Our  object,  indeed,  is  to  make  it  the  case:  but  so 
long  as  selection  by  marriage  exists  —  and  its  occur- 
rence is  palpably  indisputable  —  it  is  a  serious  Haw  In 
the  common  argument  to  assume  that  the  production 
and  preservation  of  undesirables  necessarily  involves 
their  own  parenthood  in  due  course.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  strict  statistical  inquiry  be  made  on 
this  point.  It  would  show,  I  believe,  that  the 
marriage-rate  and  the  birth-rate  amongst  the  grossly 
unfit  is  much  lower  than  that  of  the  general  commun- 
ity, or,  in  other  words,  that  the  influence  and  value 
of  selection  by  marriage  (which,  as  we  have  shown, 
is  in  effect  selection  for  parenthood,  the  only  selection 
that  ultimately  matters)  has  not  yet  been  fully  ap- 
preciated. I  very  strongly  incline  to  the  view  that 
if  this  protective  factor  were  not  constantly  at  work, 
the  "  multiplication  of  the  unfit "  would  long  ago  have 
led  to  the  destruction  of  every  civilized  nation  on  the 
earth:  they  would  have  swamped  us  long  ago.  In- 
deed, the  proposition  may  be  laid  down  that,  supreme 
and  indispensable  as  are  the  services  of  marriage  to 
race-culture,  in  its  protection  of  motherhood,  and  the 
support  of  motherhood  by  fatherhood,  probably  the 
services  of  marriage  as  in  effect  the  working  of  sexual 
selection,  are  worthy  of  being  rated  almost,  if  not 
quite,  as  high. 

SEXUAL  SELECTION  is  CERTAINLY  TRUE  OF  MAN- 
KIND.—  Before  adducing  the  outlines  of  the  evidence 
in  favor  of  marriage  as  an  instrument  of  selection,  it 
may  be  well  to  point  out  that  here  we  are  really  dis- 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      221 

cussing  what  Darwin  called  "  sexual  selection/'  mod- 
ified by  the  psychology  and  peculiar  characters  of 
mankind.  We  must  protect  ourselves  from  the  critics 
who  will  remind  us  that  sexual  selection  is  very  largely 
discredited  to-day,  rather  more  than  a  generation 
after  Darwin's  enunciation  of  it  in  The  Descent  of 
Man  (1871).  The  controversy  regarding  sexual 
selection  as  the  producer  of  feathers  and  markings 
and  song,  and  so  forth,  amongst  the  lower  animals,  is 
fortunately  quite  irrelevant  to  our  present  discussion, 
which  is  concerned  with  mankind.  We  can  afford  to 
note  with  equanimity  the  observation  that,  in  lower 
species,  no  mature  female  goes  unmated,  for  instance ; 
the  fact  remains  that  in  the  case  of  mankind  a  very 
considerable  percentage  of  women  remain  unmarried. 
The  case  is  similar  as  regards  the  male  sex.  In  short, 
one  may  declare  that,  whether  or  not  sexual  selection 
is  possible,  or  occurs,  or  accomplishes  anything,  in  the 
case  of  lower  animals,  it  palpably  and  patently  is  pos- 
sible, and  does  occur,  amongst  mankind,  and  espe- 
cially amongst  civilized  peoples,  in  the  form  of  selection 
by  or  for  marriage  —  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  in 
effect  selection  for  parenthood.  Let  us  first  note  the 
statistical  evidence  regarding  marriage-selection  of 
health  and  energy. 

SPENCER  ON  MARITAL  LONGEVITY. —  We  are  all 
aware  that  married  people  live  longer,  on  the  average, 
than  unmarried  people,  the  conclusion  being,  "  of 
course,"  that  marriage  is  good  for  the  health.  But 
some  are  taken  and  others  left  in  this  respect,  and  if, 
for  any  conceivable  reason,  health  is  a  factor  making 
for  selection  by  marriage,  that  may  be  a  real  expla- 


i 


222      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

nation,  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  the  longer  life  of  mar- 
ried people.  Considering  the  risks  to  life  involved 
in  motherhood,  the  superior  longevity  of  married  as 
compared  with  unmarried  women  would  be  incompre- 
hensible except  on  some  such  assumption.  Yet  it  is 
the  fact,  so  imperfect  still  is  the  entry  of  the  idea  of 
selection  into  the  popular  and  even  the  expert  mind, 
that  the  superior  longevity  of  married  people  is  still 
constantly  asserted  to  mean  that  marriage  makes  for 
long  life;  every  year,  when  the  statistics  are  printed, 
this  argument  may  be  seen  in  the  newspapers,  and  I 
remember  encountering  it  in  the  Encyclopedia  Bri- 
tannica,  to  my  utter  astonishment.  This  uncritical 
conclusion  was  disposed  of  by  the  author  of  the  phrase 
"the  survival  of  the  fittest" — appropriately  enough 
—  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  If  the  reader  will 
turn  to  Herbert  Spencer's  Study  of  Sociology  (a  mas- 
terpiece which  may  be  commended  to  the  publishers 
for  the  purpose  of  indexing  —  twenty  editions  without 
an  index  are  too  many)  he  will  find  in  Chapter  V.  a 
discussion  of  this  question.  It  is  an  astonishing  thing 
that  though  Spencer  conclusively  exposed  it  a  gener- 
ation ago,  the  childish  fallacy  is  still  apparently  as 
flourishing  as  ever.  He  shows  how  the  greater 
healthfulness  of  married  life  was  supposed  to  be  proved 
by  Dr.  Stark  from  comparison  of  the  rates  of  mortal- 
ity among  the  married  and  among  the  celibate.  Then 
no  less  an  authority  than  M.  Bertillon  went  into  the 
matter  and  contributed  a  paper  called  "  The  Influence 
of  Marriage" — thus  begging  the  question  in  its 
very  title  —  to  the  Brussels  Academy  of  Medicine. 
He  showed  that,  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  years  of 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      223 

age,  several  continental  countries  being  taken  into 
the  reckoning.  "  The  mortality  per  thousand  is  4  in 
married  men,  10.4  in  bachelors,  and  22  in  widows. 
This  beneficial  influence  of  marriage  is  manifested  at 
all  ages,  being  always  more  strongly  marked  in  men 
than  in  women."  The  absurdity  of  the  apparent  con- 
clusion regarding  widows  is  surely,  as  Spencer  says, 
too  obvious  for  discussion.  But,  for  the  rest,  Spencer 
goes  on  to  show  that,  in  reality,  "marriage  and 
longevity  are  concomitant  results  of  the  same  cause  " 
-in  other  words,  "that  superior  quality  of  organ- 
ization which  conduces  to  long  life  also  conduces  to 
marriage.  It  is  normally  accompanied  by  a  predom- 
inance of  the  instincts  and  emotions  prompting  marri- 
age ;  there  goes  along  with  it  that  power  l  which  can 
secure  the  means  of  making  marriage  practicable ;  and 
it  increases  the  probability  of  success  in  courtship." 
Spencer  shows  how  "  of  men  whose  marriages  depend 
upon  getting  the  needful  income"  those  who  will 
succeed  are  in  general  "  the  best,  physically  and  men- 
tally —  the  strong,  the  intellectually  capable,  the 
morally  well-balanced."  He  shows  also  how  "  women 
are  attracted  towards  men  of  power  —  physical,  emo- 
tional, intellectual;  and  obviously  their  freedom  of 
choice  leads  them,  in  many  cases,  to  refuse  inferior 
samples  of  men;  especially  the  mal- formed,  the  dis- 
eased, and  those  who  are  ill-developed,  physically  and 
mentally.  So  that,  in  so  far  as  marriage  is  determined 
by  female  selection,  the  average  result  on  men  is  that 

1 "  In  any  scheme  of  eugenics,  energy  is  the  most  important 
quality  to  favor ;  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  basis  of  every  action, 
and  it  is  eminently  transmissible  by  descent." — GALTON. 


224      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

while  the  best  easily  get  wives,  a  certain  proportion  of 
the  worst  are  left  without  wives/' 

Very  likely  the  stupid  conclusion  into  which  so  many 
distinguished  men  have  been  betrayed  will  survive 
for  many  years  yet  amongst  less  distinguished  people, 
but  at  any  rate  we  may  free  our  minds  from  it  here, 
and  may  recognize  in  the  figures  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred, and  which  are  of  the  same  order  to-day,  the 
statistical  proof  of  what  any  observer,  however  casual, 
might  have  inferred  from  what  he  sees  even  amongst 
his  own  friends  only  —  that  marriage  is,  as  it  probably 
always  has  been,  a  selective  agent  of  much  value  in 
preserving  and  augmenting  the  desirable  inherent 
qualities  of  the  race.  It  is,  of  course,  the  object  of 
race-culture  or  eugenics  to  strengthen  the  hands  of 
marriage  in  this  respect  to  the  utmost  possible  degree. 
WOMAN  AS  PRACTICAL  EUGENIST. —  We  must  espe- 
cially note  one  most  important  matter,  radically  affect- 
ing race-culture,  which  is  referred  to  by  Herbert 
Spencer  in  the  passage  cited,  and  has  been  greatly  in- 
sisted upon  by  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the  co-dis- 
coverer with  Darwin  of  the  principle  of  natural  selec- 
tion. The  matter  in  question  is  the  possibliity  of  race- 
|  culture  through  the  choice  of  their  husbands  by  women. 
Not  long  ago  Dr.  Wallace 1  described  selection 
through  marriage  as  the  "  more  permanently  effective 
agency  through  which  the  improvement  of  human 
character  may  be  achieved."  This,  in  his  opinion,  can 
only  be  perfectly  achieved  "  when  a  greatly  improved 
social  system  renders  all  our  women  economically  and 
socially  free  to  choose;  while  a  rational  and  complete 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  January,  1908. 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      225 

education  will  have  taught  them  the  importance  of 
their  choice  both  to  themselves  and  to  humanity.  It 
will  act  through  the  agency  of  well-known  facts  and 
principles  of  human  nature,  leading  to  a  continuous 
reduction  of  the  lower  types  in  each  successive  gener- 
ation, and  it  is  the  only  mode  yet  suggested  which  will 
automatically  and  naturally  effect  this."  Thus  "  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind  his  Character 
—  his  very  Human  Nature  itself  —  will  be  improved 
by  the  slow  but  certain  action  of  a  pure  and  beautiful 
form  of  selection  —  a  selection  which  will  act,  not 
through  struggle  and  death,  but  through  brotherhood 
and  love." 

Dr.  Wallace  is  a  socialist,  and  he  believes  that  only 
through  socialism  can  we  achieve  "  that  perfect  free- 
dom of  choice  in  marriage  which  will  only  be  possible 
when  all  are  economically  equal,  and  no  ques- 
tion of  social  rank  or  material  advantage  can  have  the 
slightest  influence  in  determining  that  choice."  As  I 
have  said  elsewhere,  I  would  call  myself  neither  a 
socialist  nor  an  anti-socialist,  but  if  the  labels  are 
necessary,  a  eugenist  and  maternalist.  As  such,  I 
can  only  say  that  this  argument  for  socialism  —  that  it 
is  the  necessary  condition  of  eugenics  or  race-culture 
-  is,  for  me,  incomparably  the  best  argument  for  that 
creed ;  and  if  it  were  proved  that  only  through  social- 
ism could  the  utmost  be  made  of  women's  choice  of 
husbands,  then  no  other  argument  against  socialism 
could  have  any  appreciable  weight  at  all.  The  funda- 
mental and  permanent  argument  against  certain  of  the 
highly  various  and  incompatible  doctrines  which,  for 
our  confusion,  are  commonly  lumped  together  as  so- 


226     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

cialism,  is  that  they  would  arrest  the  process  by  which 
Nature  rewards  worth  and  permits  it  to  perpetuate 
itself.  If,  then,  it  can  be  shown,  as  may  or  may  not 
be  the  case,  that  only  through  socialism  can  male  worth 
be  most  effectively  chosen  and  male  unworth  be  re- 
jected for  fatherhood,  the  supreme  —  that  is,  the 
eugenic  —  argument  against  socialism  becomes  the 
conclusive  argument  in  its  favor. 

THE  FIELD  OF  CHOICE. —  But,  however  this  may  be, 
there  can  be  no  question  that  the  eugenic  purpose,  as 
well  as  the  happiness  and  elevation  of  individuals  in 
the  present,  will  be  greatly  served  by  whatever  meas- 
ures increase,  to  the  utmost  extent  possible,  the  op- 
portunities for  choice  in  marriage  afforded  to  women 
and  also  to  men.  One  of  the  most  amazing  and  satis- 
factory facts  about  marriage  as  at  present  practiced  is, 
I  think,  the  large  proportion  —  often  estimated  at  sev- 
enty-five per  cent. —  of  unions  which,  apart  from  any 
eugenic  question,  turn  out  happily,  in  Great  Britain,  at 
any  rate.  What  makes  this  fact  more  amazing  is  the 
almost  incredible  limitation  of  the  field  of  choice 
within  which  both  sexes  are  still  confined  as  a  whole. 
If  the  reader  will  consider  the  cases  most  familiar  to 
him  or  her,  it  will  surely  be  admitted  that  the  consid- 
erable success  of  marriage  takes  on  an  astonishing 
aspect  when  the  present  strait  conditions  of  choice  are 
taken  into  account.  I  am  convinced  that  few  more 
radical  and  far-reaching,  because  eugenic,  reforms  can 
be  conceived  than  any  which,  in  accordance  with  Dr. 
Wallace's  argument,  tend  to  widen  the  field  of  choice, 
and  that  not  for  one  sex  only  but  for  both.  He  would 
be  a  rash  man  who  ventured  to  allot  superior  value  to 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      227 

the  selection  of  a  man  by  woman  rather  than  of  woman 
by  man,  or  vice  versa.  Quite  apart  from  any  deeper 
and  more  difficult  reforms,  such  as  Dr.  Wallace  alludes 
to,  I  am  sure  that  even  the  mere  widening  of  the  field 
of  choice,  as  such,  is  the  most  desirable.  To  take 
an  instance,  which  the  reader  may  very  likely  think 
trivial  and  absurd,  I  have  witnessed  in  my  brief  career 
as  a  hockey  player,  two  unions  most  happy  and  eu- 
genic in  every  way,  which  entirely  depended  upon 
the  existence  of  the  amusement  called  mixed  hockey  — 
whereat  the  contracting  parties  met  one  another !  It  is 
not  asserted  that  these  two  cases  suffice  for  world-wide 
generalization.  They  are  merely  cited  as  instances 
which  set  at  least  one  hockey  player  thinking,  even 
on  the  field  —  the  field  of  choice.  It  is  a  great  argu- 
ment, because  it  is  a  eugenic  argument,  in  favor  of  com- 
munity of  sports  and  amusements  amongst  young  peo- 
ple of,  both  sexes,  that  it  does  widen  the  field  of  choice 
in  marriage,  and  that  in  doing  so  it  also  tends  to  favor 
those  factors  of  selection  which  the  eugenist  would  de- 
sire to  see  selected:  and  this  especially  as  compared 
with  the  ball-room.  I  think  that  the  reader  will  agree 
that  the  conditions,  the  "  atmosphere,"  the  costume,  and 
the  other  features  of  what  young  people  call  a 
"  dance,"  whilst  undoubtedly  serving  the  purpose  of 
marriage  and  widening  somewhat  a  field  of  choice 
which  might  otherwise  be  ludicrously  and  impractic- 
ably restricted,  compare  most  unfavorably  with  the  con- 
ditions of  even  the  mixed  hockey  field,  which,  decried 
though  they  often  be,  are  to  my  mind  immeasurably 
healthier  on  every  conceivable  ground  than  those  of 
the  ball-room,  and  not  least  of  all  on  the  eugenic 


228      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ground  of  the  prominence  gained  by  most  desirable 
qualities,  of  which  mere  strength  and  energy  and 
neuro-muscular  skill  are  quite  the  least,  whilst  unsel- 
fishness, capacity  for  self-control,  patience,  real  gal- 
lantry —  as  when  a  male  "  full-back  "  refrains  from 
hitting  the  ball  with  all  his  might  against  the  toes  of  a 
girl  "  forward  " —  the  sporting  spirit  and  other  true 
and  radical  virtues,  are  the  greatest.  It  is  undoubtedly 
the  case  that  the  personal  factors,  physical  and  psych- 
ical which  determine  the  mutual  attraction  of  young 
people,  have  dependent  upon  them  the  whole  of  human 
destiny.  In  society  to-day,  what  one  may  call  the 
incidence  of  parenthood,  upon  which  all  the  future 
necessarily  depends,  is  determined  by  nothing  other 
than  the  humanized  form  of  what  Darwin  called  "  sex- 
ual selection."  Therefore  it  is  not  trivial  but  su- 
premely important  to  discuss  the  conditions  under 
which  the  selection  obtains.1 

It  has  already  been  suggested  that  in  order  to  en- 
hance the  eugenic  value  of  marriage  we  should  en- 
deavor to  widen  the  field  of  choice,  at  present  ludi- 
crously restricted  by  custom,  class,  religion,  economic 
position,  and  so  forth.  The  increased  locomotion  of 
to-day  will  be  of  real  eugenic  service  to  the  race  in 
this  respect,  I  believe. 

Then  it  has  been  hinted  that  young  people  should 
meet  one  another  under  conditions  which  make  prom- 

1 "  As  the  German  philosopher  Schopenhauer  remarks,  the  final 
aim  of  all  love  intrigues,  be  they  comic  or  tragic,  is  really  of 
more  importance  than  all  other  ends  in  human  life.  What  it 
all  turns  upon  is  nothing  less  than  the  composition  of  the  next 
generation.  .  .  .  It  is  not  the  weal  or  woe  of  any  one 
individual,  but  that  of  the  human  race  to  come,  which  is  at 
stake."— DARWIN,  Descent  of  Man,  p.  893. 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      229 

inent  the  psychical  and  put  the  merely  physical  or  ani- 
mal into  the  background  —  e.g.  on  the  hockey  field  or 
the  ice  (or  in  the  "  literary  circle  ")  rather  than  in  the 
ball-room.  This  proposition  accords,  of  course,  with 
what  has  been  said  elsewhere  as  to  that  great  factor  of 
progress  which  I  define  as  the  enhancement  of  the  sur- 
vival-value of  the  psychical  as  against  that  of  the  phys- 
ical. (Note  the  obvious  sequence  —  survival-value, 
selection-value,  marriage-value,  parenthood-value, 
progress-  value.)  This  proposition  and  the  last  might 
both  be  worked  out,  I  believe,  in  considerable  detail 
and  not  without  profit. 

Arguing  on  the  same  lines,  we  may  agree  that  even 
such  a  small  matter,  usually  considered  wholly  domes- 
tic, as  the  length  of  engagements,  is  of  eugenic  or 
racial  importance.  The  eugenist,  I  think,  must  wel- 
come long  engagements  simply  because,  though  they 
may  involve  a  reduced  marriage-rate  and  a  reduced 
birth-rate  —  the  latter  partly  in  consequence  of  the 
reduced  marriage-rate,  and  partly  because  of  the  later 
age  at  marriage  —  they  tend  by  the  mere  operation 
of  time,  as  we  say,  to  enhance  the  importance  of  the 
psychical  and  to  reduce  the  importance  of  the  physical 
factors  which  determine  sexual  attraction. 

To  these  three  points  a  fourth,  of  great  importance, 
must  be  added.  It  is  that  we  should  favor,  as  far  as 
possible,  those  factors  of  choice  for  marriage  which 
are  inherent,  and  therefore  transmissible,  as  against 
those  which  are  acquired,  accidental,  and  therefore 
not  transmissible,  and  therefore  of  no  racial  or  eugenic 
importance.  This,  of  course,  is  the  point  made  by 
Dr.  Wallace  in  the  article  quoted  above  —  or  at  any 


230      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

rate  it  is  involved  in  the  point  he  makes.  I  simply 
mean  that  every  time  a  marriage  is  brought  about  by, 
for  instance,  money,  the  eugenic  value  of  marriage 
is  at  least  nullified  and  may  become  actually  anti- 
eugenic.  Again  I  say,  if  Socialism  1  be  necessary  in 
order  that  selection  for  marriage  shall  be  determined 
by  the  possession  of  personal  qualities  of  racial  value 
rather  than  the  power  of  the  purse,  which  has  al- 
ways been  a  racial  curse,  then  the  sooner  socialism  is 
established  the  better. 

THE  EUGENIC  VALUE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  MARRIAGE. 

—  The  first  purpose  of  this  chapter  has  been  to  show 
that  in  marriage,  wherever,  and  in  so  far  as,  it  is  de- 
termined by  the  mutual  attractiveness  of  young  peo- 
ple, there  exists  a  eugenic  factor  in  society  to-day ;  and 
since  the  race  is  in  effect  recruited  by  the  married 
people,  this  aspect  of  marriage  deserves  the  closest 
study  and  attention.  I  commend  this  subject,  the 
eugenic  value  of  contemporary  marriage,  to  the  small 
but  rapidly  increasing  number  of  students  who  realize 
that  eugenics  or  race-culture  will  be  the  supreme 
science  of  the  future,  and  who  are  now  devoting  them- 
selves to  its  foundations.  No  more  important  and 
urgent  inquiry  can  be  undertaken  at  this  stage. 
Which,  for  instance,  is  the  more  eugenic  the  English 
system  or  the  French? 

The  second  purpose  has  been  to  show  that  one  may 
believe  in  and  work  for  eugenics  or  race-culture  with- 
out proposing  to  overthrow  all  human  institutions,  or 
to  adopt  the  methods  of  the  stud-farm,  or  to  initiate 
a  vast  campaign  of  surgery,  or  sensational  and  dras- 
tic legislation,  or  even,  yet,  the  employment  of  mar- 

1or  the  abolition  of  Unnatural  inheritance, 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      231 

riage  certificates.  One  or  all  of  these  things  may 
have  their  place,  now  or  hereafter;  or  may,  on  the 
other  hand,  be  far  worse  than  futile.  But  most  as- 
suredly it  is  possible  now  for  the  individual  parent  of 
marriageable  children,  for  the  clergyman,  the  leader 
of  fashion,  the  doctor,  not  to  start  but  to  strengthen 
such  by  no  means  impotent  eugenic  forces  as  already 
exist  in  society,  without  outraging  sentiment  or  cus- 
tom—  indeed,  without  attracting  public  attention  to 
their  action  at  all. 

Eugenics  has  already  suffered  much  at  the  hands 
of  its  so-called  friends.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  real 
service  may  be  discharged  by  this  attempt  to  show 
that  on  the  highest,  most  accurate  and  scientific  eugenic 
grounds,  we  may  recognize,  claim  and  welcome  every 
father  and  mother  who  desire  that  the  son  or  daugh- 
ter whom  they  care  for  shall  marry  for  psychical  and 
not  for  physical  love.  Every  such  parent  is  a  eugenist, 
in  effect,  though  his  sole  motive  may  be  the  welfare 
of  his  individual  child. 

At  present  we  interfere  with  marriage  on  every 
imaginable  ground,  many  utterly  trivial,  many  worse. 
We  encourage  or  discourage  on  economic  grounds; 
we  recognize  many  taboos,  of  caste,  creed,  color.  It 
is  not  for  us,  certainly,  acting  as  we  do,  to-  be  of- 
fended at  the  suggestion  that  we  should  use  our 
influence  to  affect  marriage  on  the  highest  conceivable 
ground  —  the  life  of  mankind  to  come.  What  we 
really  need  is  not  so  much  the  abolition  of  Mrs. 
Grundy  as  her  conversion  to  the  eugenic  idea.  It  is 
the  business  of  those  who  believe  that  eugenics  is  the 
greatest  ideal  in  the  world  to  make  a  eugenist  of  Mrs. 


232      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Grundy,  as  we  shall  some  day:  and  then  it  will  be 
realized  how  potent  for  good  public  opinion  may  be- 
come, once  it  is  rightly  educated. 

Says  Mr.  Galton,  in  his  latest  contribution  to  the 
subject : — 

The  power  of  social  opinion  is  apt  to  be  rather  under-rated 
than  over-rated.  Like  the  atmosphere  which  we  breathe  and  by 
which  we  live,  social  opinion  operates  powerfully  without  our 
being  conscious  of  its  existence.  Everyone  knows  that  govern- 
ments, manners,  and  beliefs  which  were  thought  to  be  right, 
decorous,  and  true  at  one  period  have  been  judged  wrong,  in- 
decorous, and  false  at  another;  and  that  views  which  we  have 
heard  expressed  by  those  in  authority  over  us  in  our  childhood 
and  early  manhood  tend  to  become  axiomatic  and  unchangeable 
in  mature  life. 

Speaking  for  myself  only,  I  look  forward  to  local  eugenic  ac- 
tion in  numerous  directions,  including  the  accumulation  of  con- 
siderable funds  to  start  young  couples  of  "  worthy  "  qualities  in 
their  married  life,  and  to  assist  them  and  their  families  at  crit- 
ical times.  The  gifts  to  those  who  are  the  reverse  of  "  worthy  " 
are  enormous  in  amount;  it  is  stated  that  the  charitable  dona- 
tions in  the  year  1907  amounted  to  £4,868,050.  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  say  how  much  of  this  was  judiciously  spent,  or  in  what 
ways,  but  merely  quote  the  figures  to  justify  the  inference  that 
many  of  the  thousands  of  persons  who  are  willing  to  give  freely 
at  the  prompting  of  a  sentiment  based  upon  compassion,  might 
be  persuaded  to  give  largely  also  in  response  to  a  more  virile 
sentiment,  based  on  the  desire  of  promoting  the  natural  gifts  and 
the  National  Efficiency  of  future  generations. 

In  circumscribed  communities  especially,  social  approval  and 
disapproval  exert  a  potent  force.  Its  presence  is  only  too  easily 
read  by  every  one  who  is  the  object  of  either,  in  the  counte- 
nances, bearing,  and  manner  of  those  with  whom  they  daily  meet 
and  converse.  Is  it  then,  I  ask,  too  much  to  expect  that  when 
a  public  opinion  in  favor  of  Eugenics  has  once  taken  sure  hold 
of  such  communities  and  has  been  accepted  by  them  as  a  quasi- 
religion,  the  result  will  be  manifested  in  sundry  and  very  effec- 
tive modes  of  action  which  are  as  yet  untried  and  many  of  them 
even  unforeseen? 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      233 

BREACH  OF  PROMISE"  AND  RACE-CULTURE. —  It 
may  be  added  that  perhaps  we  shall  have  to  learn  to 
reconsider  our  ill-judged  and  stupid  censoriousness, 
directed  against  young  people  who  get  engaged  but 
then  become  tired  of  one  another  —  as  they  accurately 
say,  discover  that  they  are  not  suited  for  one  another. 
Not  only  is  it  obvious  that  we  are  fools  in  denounc- 
ing this  discovery  of  impermanence  in  their  attrac- 
tion, happily  made  before  marriage,  whilst  we  ignore 
the  disasters  of  its  lamentably  postmature  discovery, 
after  marriage:  but  also  it  should  be  obvious  that 
the  eugenic  end  is  negatively  served  whenever  what 
would  have  been  an  unfortunate  union  is  broken  off 
in  time.  Our  imbecile  standard  of  honor,  and  the 
law  of  breach  of  promise,  which  is  outrageously 
abused,  at  present  condemn  the  man,  for  instance,  who 
finds  that  he  has  made  a  mistake,  whilst  passively 
applauding  him  who,  finding  his  mistake,  thinks  it  his 
duty  to  make  it  irreparable.  Far  better  would  it  be  that 
the  man  incapable  of  forming  an  attachment  made  of 
the  non-material  ties  which  last,  should  not  marry  at 
all.  The  man  who  cannot  see,  or  seeing,  cannot  find 
it  in  his  heart  to  love,  the  spiritual  beauties  of  woman- 
hood, is  just  the  man  who  can  be  safely  omitted  in  the 
eugenist's  scheme  for  fatherhood. 

The  plea  of  insanity  is,  in  English  law,  no  protection 
against  a  claim  for  damages  for  breach  of  promise  to 
marry,  unless  it  be  proved  insanity  at  date  of  contract 
in  the  defendant.  A  valid  contract  once  made,  it  is  no 
excuse  for  non-performance  that  insanity  has  been  dis- 
covered in  the  family  of  the  other  party.  This  wicked 
law  must  be  altered, 


234      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

THE  NEED  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY. —  In  his  study  of 
this  subject  the  student  will  naturally  turn  to  Mr. 
Havelock  Ellis's  volume  entitled  Sexual  Selection  in 
Man.1  This,  of  course,  has  its  own  scientific  value  as 
a  statement  of  facts,  notwithstanding  its  intensely  nau- 
seating character.  But  anything  less  relevant  to  what 
most  of  us  understand  by  psychology,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  imagine.  The  book  considers  seriatim,  touch, 
smell,  hearing,  and  vision  as  the  bases  of  so-called 
love.  It  thus  deals  with  "  sensology  "  not  psychology. 
Indeed,  to  the  best  of  one's  recollection,  after  very  close 
and  careful  reading,  there  is  no  allusion  to  the  human 
mind  in  it  anywhere.  If  men  and  women  were  simply 
animals,  this  book  would  doubtless  cover  the  ground, 
and  perhaps  the  word  "psychology"  would  even  be 
justified  in  connection  with  it.  From  end  to  end  men 
and  women  are  consistently  treated  as  animals  and  no 
more.  Since,  however,  the  human  species  is  possessed 
of  psychical  characters  which  distinguish  it  from  the 
lower  animals,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
a  volume  which  really  dealt  with  sexual  selection  in 
man  would,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  recognize  the  exist- 
ence of  those  characters  —  even  if  only  to  reject  them 
as  irrelevant  to  the  subject  under  discussion. 

The  foregoing  remarks  do  not  imply  that  the  purely 
anatomical  and  sensory  factors  are  irrelevant  to  the 
selection  of  parents  in  any  generation,  and  for  meth- 
odological purposes  it  might  be  of  value  to  abstract 
from  the  factors  of  sexual  selection  in  human  society 
such  things  as  odor  and  contour.  But  it  would  be  ur- 

1  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  iv.     (F,  A.  Davis  Co., 
Philadelphia,  1905.) 


SELECTION  THROUGH  MARRIAGE      235 

gently  necessary  in  the  course  of  such  a  study,  if  it 
were  to  be  other  than  extremely  misleading,  to  observe 
that  this  selection  of  factors  was  made  for  purposes 
of  convenience  and  that  the  relation  of  their  import- 
ance to  that  of  other  factors  was  a  matter  for  further 
and  by  no  means  casual  consideration. 

We  may  certainly  agree  with  Mr.  Havelock  Ellis 
that  sexual  selection  occurs  in  human  society,  and  may 
welcome  his  volume  as  supporting  that  assertion.  There 
follows  the  extremely  interesting  and  indeed  urgent 
necessity  of  ascertaining  what  the  factors  of  this  selec- 
tion really  are,  what  is  their  relative  potency  and  what 
is  their  capacity  for  modification.  We  may  further 
inquire  whether  they  tend  to  be  eugenic.  A  contri- 
bution to  this  subject  is  furnished  by  Mr.  Ellis  when 
he  shows  that  width  of  hips  is  a  female  character 
commonly  admired  by  men.  Since  a  wide  pelvis  is 
one  which  can  accommodate  and  safely  give  birth  to  a 
large  foetal  head,  there  is  here,  as  a  practically  solitary 
case,  a  bearing  on  the  eugenic  issue :  large  heads  mean, 
in  general,  large  brains,  and  it  would  be  ill  for  the 
white  races  if  men  admired  hips  as  narrow  as  those  of, 
for  instance,  the  negress,  whose  pelvis  could  not  find 
room  for  the  average  head  of  a  purely  white  baby,  and 
who  suffers  terribly  in  many  cases  where  the  father  is 
white,  especially  if  the  child  be  a  boy. 

Meanwhile  we  must  wait  for  studies  of  this  great 
question  from  various  points  of  view,  notably  for  a 
study  of  the  economics  of  sexual  selection  as  it  obtains 
in  human  society.  Yet  further,  we  require  a  detailed 
study  of  the  influence  of  legislation,  custom  and  pub- 
lic opinion  upon  sexual  selection  —  on  the  lines  of 


236       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Mr.  Galton's  paper  on  "  Restrictions  in  Marriage." 
Mr.  Havelock  Ellis  has  more  than  adequately  dealt 
with  the  nervous  physiology  of  sexual  selection ;  there 
remain  the  psychology  and  sociology  of  it  —  these  lat- 
ter comprehending,  one  may  suppose,  ninety-nine  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  subject.  In  the  preceding  pages 
allusion  has  been  made  to  one  or  two  of  the  more 
salient  aspects  of  this  matter. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  RACIAL  POISONS  :  ALCOHOL  * 

IN  the  first  chapter  of  our  second  Part,  which  deals 
with  the  practice  of  eugenics,  there  were  introduced, 
defined,  and  briefly  illustrated  the  terms  positive  eu- 
genics, and  negative  eugenics.  Of  these  the  latter,  as 
the  more  urgent  and  the  more  completely  and  immedi- 
ately practicable,  claims  our  special  attention;  though 
the  present  writer,  notwithstanding  that  he  has  de- 
voted to  it  the  greater  part  of  his  eugenic  work,  is 
bound  to  protest  that  the  positive  increase  of  ability 
and  worth  is  never  to  be  regarded  as  of  secondary 
importance.  The  two  methods  are,  of  course,  com- 
plementary in  practice,  as  they  are  one  in  principle  — 
to  select  is  to  reject,  to  choose  is  to  refuse.  The 
preceding  chapter,  on  selection  (and  rejection) 
through  marriage,  has  dealt  with  the  conditions  under 
which  both  aims  are  to  be  pursued.  In  the  following 
pages  we  must  discuss  a  specially  urgent  and  practi- 
cable and  indisputable  portion  of  negative  eugenic 
practice:  none  the  less  urgent  because  of  the  contem- 
porary emergence  and  future  world-importance  of 
sober  nations,  such  as  Japan  and  Turkey.  The  term 

1  Part  of  the  matter  of  this  chapter  was  included  in  a  paper 
entitled  "  Racial  Hygiene  or  Negative  Eugenics,  with  special 
reference  to  the  extirpation  of  Alcoholism/'  read  before  the 
Congress  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  Public  Health,  at  Buxton, 
1908,  and  "  Alcoholism  and  Eugenics,"  read  before  the  Society 
for  the  Study  of  Inebriety. —  April,  1909. 

237 


238       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

racial  poisons,  introduced  by  the  present  writer  in  the 
year  1907,  is  self-explanatory.  After  dealing  with 
the  most  important  of  these  poisons,  we  shall  proceed, 
in  the  next  chapter,  to  discuss  some  others.  The  ra- 
cial poisons  constitute  a  special  department  of  eugenics 
which  has  not  hitherto  been  considered  by  the  pioneers 
of  this  subject,  but  for  which  I  press  the  claim  of  the 
utmost  gravity  and  moment,  and  which  I  conceive  to 
be  certainly  a  part,  and  a  most  important  part,  of  our 
manifold  yet  single  subject. 

The  argument  of  this  chapter  is  that  parenthood 
must  be  forbidden  to  the  dipsomaniac,  the  chronic  in- 
ebriate or  the  drunkard,  whether  male  or  female;  and 
this  whether  Lamarck  or  Galton  and  Weismann  be 
right,  or  whether,  as  we  may  believe  with  Galton  and 
Weismann  themselves,  the  controversy  between  the 
two  parties  is  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  question  in 
hand.  This  conclusion,  that  on  no  grounds  whatever, 
theoretical  or  practical,  can  we  continue  to  permit  par- 
enthood on  the  part  of  the  drunkard,  is  one  temper- 
ance reform,  perhaps  the  only  one,  on  which  disagree- 
ment is  absolutely  impossible.  It  is,  further,  the  most 
radical  that  can  be  named  within  the  sphere  of  practi- 
cal politics,  and  it  is  conspicuously  practicable.  It  has 
hitherto  been  lamentably  neglected  by  workers  and  re- 
formers of  all  schools.  Indeed,  at  the  time  of  writ- 
ing, the  London  County  Council,  governing  the  great- 
est city  in  the  world,  is  pursuing  a  course  of  action  in 
this  regard,  which  will  be  detailed  later,  and  which,  as 
will  appear,  is  misguided  and  deplorable  in  the  last 
degree. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       239 

ALCOHOL  AND  HEREDITY. —  According  to  Dr.  Arch- 
dall  Reid,  "  alcohol,  year  after  year,  eliminates  from 
the  race  a  great  number  of  people  so  constituted  that 
intoxication  affords  them  keen  delight,  leaving  the 
perpetuation  of  the  race  in  great  measure  to  those  on 
whom  intoxication  confers  little  or  no  delight.  .  .  . 
Now  since  alcohol  weeds  out  enormous  numbers  of 
people  of  a  particular  type,  it  is  a  stringent  agent  of 
selection  —  an  agent  of  selection  more  stringent  than 
any  one  disease.'5  The  factor  that  really  makes  the 
drunkard  "  is  certainly  inborn,  and  therefore  as  cer- 
tainly transmissible  to  offspring.  The  man  who  has 
it  is  cursed  with  the  '  alcohol  diathesis/  with  the  '  pre- 
disposition to  drunkenness/  Thus  most  savages  are 
keenly  capable  of  enjoying  drink,  and  their  offspring 
inherit  the  capacity."  Fere  has  shown  that  "  it  is  one 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  degenerate  that  they  are 
prone  to  have  recourse  to  the  poisons,  like  alcohol  and 
morphia,  which  hasten  their  decadence  and  elimina- 
tion." Thus,  as  Dr.  W.  C.  Sullivan  points  out,  alco- 
hol "  might  certainly  be  adjudged  a  salutary  evil  if 
its  incidence  were  limited  to  individuals  whose  extreme 
inferiority  of  organization  renders  them  wholly  un- 
desirable and  useless  to  the  community.  But  this  is 
very  far  from  being  the  case."  1 

The  whole  crux  of  the  question  lies  in  this  last  sen- 
tence. Alcohol  certainly  destroys  many  degenerate 
stocks,  and  that  is  good,  though  it  would  be  better  to 
do  what  we  shall  do  some  day  —  hasten  and  amelior- 
ate the  process  by  forbidding  parenthood  to  the  de- 
generate. But  does  alcohol  also  make  degenerates; 

1  Italics  mine. 


240       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

does  it  even  make  more  degenerates  than  it  destroys? 
A  somewhat  similar  difficulty  arises  in  the  case  of  in- 
fant mortality.  The  causes  of  infant  mortality 
destroy  many  children  inherently  unfit,  diseased  or 
weakly.  But  we  are  not  justified  in  keeping  up 
our  infant  mortality,  if  we  find,  as  we  do,  that  for 
every  diseased  child  whom  they  destroy  they  kill  many 
who  were  healthy  at  birth  and  damage  for  life  many 
more. 

A  man  was  born  sober  —  in  most  cases,  but  not  al- 
ways,1 as  we  shall  see  —  and  any  changes  produced 
in  his  body  by  alcohol  are  "  acquired."  Therefore, 
rejecting  Lamarck,  are  we  to  reject  the  doctrine  that 
the  effects  produced  by  alcohol  on  parents  are  trans- 
mitted to  offspring? 

The  controversy  between  Lamarck  and  Weismann 
has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  question.  Let 
us  consider  what  would  be  a  case  of  Lamarckian  trans- 
mission in  the  sense  which  the  modern  student  of  he- 
redity denies.  The  birth  of  a  child  with  a  scar  on  its 
scalp,  to  a  father  who  had  acquired  a  similar  scar  be- 
fore the  child  was  conceived,  would  be  such  a  case: 
and  this  does  not  happen.  Or  suppose  that  instead 
of  a  scar  on  the  scalp  the  father  has  an  inflammatory 
change,  not  so  dissimilar  to  a  scar,  produced  by  alco- 
hol in  the  membranes  covering  his  brain.  Then  it 
would  be  a  case  of  Lamarckian  transmission  if  the 
membranes  of  his  baby's  brain  were  similarly  affected ; 

1  To-day  many  of  the  children  who  make  our  destiny  are  born 
drunk,  owing  to  maternal  intoxication  during  labor.  I  have 
myself  attended  the  birth  of  such  children,  both  in  Edinburgh 
and  in  York. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      241 

and  this  does  not  happen.  Such  is  the  kind  of  trans- 
mission of  which  exhaustive  experiment  and  observa- 
tion fail  to  find  a  conclusive  instance  anywhere. 

But  what  has  such  a  supposition  to  do  with  the  the- 
ory, as  definitely  supported  by  observation  and  experi- 
ment as  the  other  is  not,  that  if  a  man  saturates  his 
body  with  alcohol  carried  by  his  blood,  he  injures  all 
the  tissues  which  are  nourished  by  that  blood,  includ- 
ing the  racial  elements  of  his  body  with  the  rest  :  and 
therefore  that  his  child  may  be  degenerate? 

What  says  Weismann  himself?  In  The  Germ- 
Plasm,  p.  386,  under  the  heading  "  The  influence  of 
temporary  abnormal  conditions  of  the  parents  on  the 
child,"  he  writes  as  follows  :  — 

"  Although  I  do  not  consider  that  the  cases  which  come  under 
the  above  heading  have  anything  to  do  with  heredity,  I  should 
not  like  to  leave  them  entirely  on  one  side. 

"It  has  often  been  supposed  that  drunkenness  of  the  parents 
at  the  time  of  conception  may  have  a  harmful  effect  on  the 
nature  of  the  offspring.  The  child  is  said  to  be  born  in  a 
weak  bodily  and  mental  condition,  and  inclined  to  idiocy,  or 
even  to  madness,  etc.,  although  the  parents  may  be  quite  nor- 
mal both  physically  and  mentally. 

"  Cases  certainly  exist  in  which  drunken  parents  have  given 
rise  to  a  completely  normal  child,  although  this  is  not  a  con- 
vincing proof  against  the  above-named  view;  and  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  most,  or  perhaps  even  all,  the  statements  with 
regard  to  the  injurious  effects  on  the  offspring  will  not  bear 
a  very  close  criticism,1  I  am  unwilling  to  entirely  deny  the 
possibility  that  a  harmful  influence  may  be  exerted  in  such 
cases.  These,  however,  have  nothing  to  do  with  heredity,  but 
are  concerned  with  an  affection  of  the  germ  by  means  of  an 
external  influence." 


was  written  in   1892,  before  the  accumulation  of  the 
modern  evidence  on  the  subject. 


242      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Weismann  goes  on  to  quote  cases  showing  how 
germ-cells  may  be  injured  by  various  agents,  and  con- 
tinues :  — 

"It  does  not  appear  to  me  impossible  that  an  inter-mixture 
of  alcohol  with  the  blood  of  the  parents  may  produce  similar 
effects  on  the  ovum  and  sperm  cell.  According  to  the  relative 
quantity  of  alcohol  either  an  exciting  or  a  depressing  influence 
might  be  exerted,  either  of  which  would  lead  to  abnormal  de- 
velopment. .  .  . 

"New  predispositions  can  certainly  never  arise  owing  to  such 
deviations  from  the  normal  course  of  development,  and  there- 
fore a  modification  of  the  process  of  heredity  itself  is  out  of 
the  question.  It  is,  however,  conceivable  that  more  or  less 
considerable  abnormalities  may  affect  the  course  of  develop- 
ment, and  either  cause  the  death  of  the  embryo,  or  else  produce 
more  or  less  marked  deformities.  The  question  as  to  whether 
such  deformities  really  result  in  consequence  of  the  drunken 
condition  of  the  parents  can  only  be  decided  by  observation."  * 

This  is  all  that  Weismann  has  to  say  on  the  subject, 
since,  not  referring  to  functionally-produced  modifica- 
tions,2 it  does  not  concern  his  theory  of  heredity  at  all : 
yet  it  is  upon  this  theory  that  the  most  palpable  facts 
of  the  racial  influence  of  alcohol  are  denied.  Weis- 
mann's  own  remarks  are  quite  open  to  criticism,  as, 
for  instance,  where  he  denies  that  new  predispositions 
can  arise  in  the  manner  indicated.  This  is  possibly 
only  a  question  of  words,  and  Weismann  is  perhaps 
merely  denying  that  alcohol  can  produce  progressive 

1 "  Alcohol  taken  into  the  stomach  can  be  demonstrated  in  the 
testicle  or  ovary  within  a  few  minutes,  and,  like  any  other 
poison,  may  injure  the  sperm  or  the  germ  element  therein 
contained.  As  a  result  of  this  intoxication  of  the  primary  ele- 
ments, children  may  be  conceived  and  born  who  become  idiots, 
epileptics,  or  feeble-minded.  Therefore  it  comes  about  that 
even  before  conception  a  fault  may  be  present." —  McAoAM 
ECCLES,  F.R.C.S.,  in  the  British  Journal  of  Inebriety,  April,  1908. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      243 

variations.  Also  his  remarkably  brief  discussion  of 
the  subject  seems  to  concern  itself  mainly  with  the  in- 
fluence of  alcohol  on  the  germ-cells  just  before  their 
union.  He  has  not  a  word  to  say  regarding  the  in- 
fluence on  the  germinal  tissues  of  years  of  soaking  in 
alcohol.  It  suffices,  however,  to  make  the  point  which 
is  quite  clearly  made,  that  the  Weismannians  are  go- 
ing absurdly  beyond  their  book  in  denying  what,  in- 
deed, the  book  of  Nature  demonstrates. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  experimental  side  of  this 
question.  An  American  botanist,  Dr.  T.  D.  Mac- 
Dougal,  read  an  address  on  "  Heredity  and  Envi- 
ronic  Forces  "  at  the  Chicago  Meeting  of  the  Ameri- 
can Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  in 
1907.  His  experiments  require  confirmation,  but  may 
be  provisionally  accepted.  He  has  permanently  modi- 
fied the  germ-plasm  of  plants  under  the  influence  of 
various  chemicals.  There  is  here  a  vast  field  for  ex- 
periment with  alcohol.  I  quote  one  paragraph  indi- 
cating the  remarkable  results  of  these  experiments. 
The  reader  will  see  their  bearing  on  our  present  ques- 
tion, and  will  also  see  that  they  do  not  for  a  moment 
affect  Weismann's  denial  of  the  doctrine  that  by  cut- 
ting off  rats'  tails  you  can  produce  a  race  of  tailless 
rats,  or  that  by  learning  a  language  you  can  save  your 
future  children  the  trouble  of  doing  so  for  them- 
selves :  — 

"  It  was  found  that  the  injection  of  various  solutions  into 
ovaries  of  Raimannia  was  followed  by  the  production  of  seeds 
bearing  qualities  not  exhibited  by  the  parent,  wholly  irreversible, 
and  fully  transmissible  in  successive  generations.  One  of  the 
seeds  produced  by  a  plant  of  CEnothera  biennis  which  had  been 


244      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

treated  with  zinc  sulphate  differed  so  widely  from  the  parental 
form  that  it  could  be  distinguished  from  it  by  a  novice.  This 
new  form  has  been  tested  to  the  third  generation,  and  transmits 
all  its  characteristics  fully." 

ALCOHOL  A  PROVED  RACIAL  POISON — But  the 
reader  will  rightly  desire  some  kind  of  experimental 
proof  that  alcohol  itself  can  act  as  a  cause  of  racial  de- 
generation. We  may  first  refer  to  the  chapter  on  al- 
coholism and  human  degeneration  in  Dr.  W.  C.  Sulli- 
van's Alcoholism,  a  Chapter  in  Social  Pathology  *  for 
a  recent  resume  of  the  subject.  Without  actually 
quoting  Weismann,  Dr.  Sullivan  begins  by  showing 
that,  as  we  have  seen,  the  doctrinal  objection  of  Dr. 
Reid  and  others  to  the  theory  of  alcoholic  degener- 
ation is  quite  irrelevant  — "  the  effects  attributed  to 
parental  alcoholism  are  not  in  the  category  of  trans- 
mitted acquirements  at  all;  they  are  the  results,  ex- 
pressed in  defect  and  deviation  of  development,  of  a 
deleterious  influence  exerted  on  the  germ-cells,  either 
directly  through  the  alcohol  circulating  in  the  blood, 
or  indirectly,  through  the  deterioration  of  the  parental 
organism  in  which  these  cells  are  lodged,  and  from 
which  they  draw  their  nutriment."  Later  Dr.  Sulli- 
van points  out  that  the  racial  effects  of  alcoholism  in 
man  are  similar  to  those  obtained  by  experimental  in- 
toxication in  the  lower  animals.  Combemale,  for 
instance,  found  that  pups  begotten  of  a  healthy  bitch 
by  an  alcoholized  dog,  were  congenitally  feeble  and 
showed  a  marked  degree  of  asymmetry  of  the  brain. 
Recent  experiments  have  shown  the  same  thing  as  re- 
gards other  poisons,  and  it  is  especially  to  be  noted  that 

1  London:    James  Nisbet  and  Co.    1906. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       245 

in  the  experiments  cited  the  mother  was  healthy. 
They  prove  that  paternal  alcoholism  alone  (all  ques- 
tions of  the  nourishment  of  the  growing  child  before 
birth,  for  instance,  thus  being  excluded)  can  deter- 
mine degeneration.  Mr.  Galton *  himself  long  ago 
quoted  the  case  "  of  a  man  who  after  begetting  several 
normal  children,  became  a  drunkard  and  had  imbecile 
offspring  " ;  and  another  case  has  been  recorded  "  of  a 
healthy  woman  who,  when  married  to  a  drunken  hus- 
band, had  five  sickly  children,  dying  in  infancy,  but 
in  subsequent  union  with  a  healthy  man,  bore  normal 
and  vigorous  children."  Other  intoxications  show 
similar  results  though  they  are  not  yet  of  grave  racial 
importance.  For  instance,  "  a  man  who  had  had  two 
healthy  children  acquired  the  cocaine  habit,  and  while 
suffering  from  the  symptoms  of  chronic  poisoning  en- 
gendered two  idiots."  Brovardel  and  others  have  dis- 
covered that  the  expectant  mother  who  is  a  morphino 
maniac  may  give  birth  to  a  child  who  shows  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  morphia  habit.  Demme  has  traced 
the  appalling  contrast  between  the  offspring  in  ten 
sober  families  and  in  ten  families  where  one  or  both 
parents  suffered  from  chronic  alcoholism.  Dr.  Sulli- 
van himself,  realizing  the  obviously  greater  importance 
of  maternal  alcoholism,  since  here  we  have  the  action 
of  poisoned  food  —  the  maternal  blood  —  upon  the 
child  before  birth,  made  an  inquiry  of  his  own.  He 
found  that 

1  Will  our  modern  extremists  be  good  enough  to  remember 
that  Mr.  Galton  is  the  prime  author  of  the  doctrine  that  func- 
tionally-produced modifications  are  not  inherited? 


V 


246     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

".  .  .  of  600  children  born  of  120  drunken  mothers  335 
(55.8  per  cent.)  died  in  infancy  or  were  still-born,  and  that 
several  of  the  survivors  were  mentally  defective,  and  as  many 
as  4.1  per  cent,  were  epileptic.  Many  of  these  women  had 
female  relatives,  sisters  or  daughters,  of  sober  habits  and  mar- 
ried to  sober  husbands;  on  comparing  the  death-rate  amongst 
the  children  of  the  sober  mothers  with  that  amongst  the  chil- 
dren of  the  drunken  women  of  the  same  stock,  the  former  was 
found  to  be  23.9  per  cent.,  the  latter  55.2  per  cent.,  or  nearly 
two  and  a  half  times  as  much.  It  was  further  observed  that 
in  the  drunken  families  there  was  a  progressive  rise  in  the 
death-rate  from  the  earlier  to  the  later  born  children." 

Dr.  Sullivan  cites  as  a  typical  alcoholic  family  one 
in  which  "  the  first  three  children  were  healthy,  the 
fourth  was  of  defective  intelligence,  the  fifth  was  an 
epileptic  idiot,  the  sixth  was  dead-born,  and  finally  the 
productive  career  ended  with  an  abortion."  Dr.  Claye 
Shaw  told  the  Interdepartmental  Committee  on  Physi- 
cal Deterioration,  "  we  have  inebriate  mothers,  and 
either  abortions  or  degenerate  children.  The  teleolog- 
ical 1  relationship  between  the  two  seems  to  be  as 
certain  as  any  other  conditions  of  cause  and  effect.'* 
The  general  rule  is  that  any  narcotic  substance  affects 
highly  developed  tissues  sooner  and  more  markedly 
than  simpler  tissues,  and  so  it  is  in  the  case  of  alcohol 
and  the  infant.  It  is  the  developing  nervous  system 
that  is  most  markedly  affected.  This  leads,  of  course, 
to  an  increased  child  mortality,  especially  by  way  of 
convulsions.  This  was  the  cause  of  sixty  per  cent,  of 
all  the  deaths  that  occurred  amongst  the  six  hundred 
children  in  Dr.  Sullivan's  series.  But  it  has  especially 
to  be  remembered  that  a  large  number  of  children 

1  The  use  of  this  word  thus  is  unusual,  to  say  the  least  of  it. 
Dr.  Claye  Shaw  simply  means  causal  relation. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      247 

whose  nervous  systems  are  injured  for  life  by  parental 
and  more  especially  by  maternal  alcoholism  do  not  die 
either  as  infants  or  children.  Instead  of  dying  of 
convulsions  they  live  as  epileptics.  Of  the  children  in 
Dr.  Sullivan's  series  "219  lived  beyond  infancy,  and 
of  these  9,  or  4.1  per  cent.,  became  epileptic,  as  com- 
pared with  o.i  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population/' 
Other  observers  have  found  epilepsy  in  12  per  cent, 
and  even  15  per  cent,  of  the  children  of  alcoholic  par- 
ents. Of  course  these  data,  as  such,  do  not  demon- 
strate Dr.  Sullivan's  conclusion  that  "  this  action  of  al- 
coholism on  the  health  and  vitality  of  the  stock  is  the 
most  serious  of  the  evils  that  intemperance  brings  on 
the  community." 

Dr.  Sullivan's  inquiries  show  a  very  high  rate  of 
still-births  and  abortions  amongst  the  children  of 
drunken  mothers  —  quite  sufficient  to  'prove  that  "  the 
detrimental  effect  of  maternal  alcoholism  must  be  in  a 
large  measure  due  to  a  direct  influence  on  the  germ- 
cells  and  on  the  developing  embryo,  and  cannot  be 
explained  as  merely  a  result  of  the  neglect  and  malnu- 
trition from  which  the  children  of  a  drunken  mother 
are  naturally  apt  to  suffer."  The  point  is  of  some 
theoretical  importance.  Practically  it  matters  little; 
in  either  case  the  drunken  woman  must  not  become  a 
mother. 

The  same  conclusion  is  reached  even  though  we  ac- 
cord unlimited  weight  to  the  unquestionably  valid  argu- 
ment that  the  drunkard  is  himself  or  herself  usually 
degenerate  from  the  first,  and  that  the  children  are 
therefore  degenerate,  and  would  indeed  be  degenerate 
even  if  the  parents  had  taken  no  alcohol.  Let  us, 


24S      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

then,  erroneously  enough,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment, assume  that  solely  and  always  alcoholism  is  a 
symptom  of  degeneracy.  It  is,  then,  an  indication  of 
unfitness  for  parenthood  no  less,  and  the  practical  is- 
sue is  the  same:  one  radical  cure  for  alcoholism,  at 
any  rate,  is  the  prohibition  of  parenthood  on  the  part 
of  the  alcoholic.1 

THE  MOST  RECENT  EVIDENCE. —  The  most  thorough 
and  comprehensive  inquiry  into  this  matter  yet  made 
is  also  the  most  recent.  We  owe  it  to  Dr.  W.  A. 
Potts,  of  the  University  of  Birmingham,  who  did  val- 
uable work  as  Medical  Investigator  to  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  Care  and  Control  of  the  Feeble-minded. 
His  paper,  entitled  "  The  Relation  of  Alcohol  to 
Feeble-mindedness,"  is  printed  in  the  British  Journal 
of  Inebriety  for  January,  1909,  together  with  commu- 
nications from  many  authorities.  It  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  summarize  here  the  enormous  mass  of  evidence 
which  Dr.  Potts  has  accumulated  from  the  literature 
of  the  subject,  and  to  which  he  has  added  his  own 
work.  I  believe  that  nothing  could  be  more  moderate 
and  assured  than  the  following  conclusions  to  which 

1The  subject  of  alcoholism  and  race-culture  really  demands 
a  large  volume.  There  is  no  space  here  to  detail  the  fashion 
in  which  the  drunken  mother  poisons  her  child  after  birth, 
when  she  nurses  it,  since,  as  has  been  chemically  proved,  alcohol 
is  excreted  in  her  milk.  Says  a  most  distinguished  authority, 
Mrs.  Scharlieb,  "the  child,  then,  absolutely  receives  alcohol 
as  part  of  his  diet,  with  the  worst  effect  upon  his  organs,  for 
alcohol  has  a  greater  effect  upon  cells  in  proportion  to  their 
immaturity"  ("The  Drink  Problem,"  in  the  New  Library  of 
Medicine),  and  Dr.  Sullivan  refers  to  "numerous  cases  on 
record  of  convulsions  and  other  disorders  occurring  in  in- 
fants when  the  nurse  has  taken  liquor,  and  ceasing  when  she 
has  been  put  on  a  non-alcoholic  diet."  The  reader  may  be 
referred  to  my  brief  paper,  "Alcohol  and  Infancy,"  published 
in  the  form  of  a  tract  by  the  Church  of  England  Temperance 
Society. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      249 

he  commits  himself  after  a  study  of  the  subject  the 
quality  and  range  of  which  can  only  be  appreciated  at 
first  hand :  — 

".  .  .  the  evidence  is  not  clear  that  alcoholism,  by  itself,  in 
the  father  will  procure  amentia;  but  it  is  quite  plain  that  in 
combination  with  other  bad  factors  it  is  a  most  unfavorable 
element,  while  maternal  drinking,  and  drinking  continued 
through  more  than  one  generation,  are  potent  influences  in 
mental  degeneracy." 

It  is  impossible,  within  the  scope  of  the  present  vol- 
ume to  analyze  in  detail  the  Report  of  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  Care  and  Control  of  the  Feeble-minded. 
In  this  present  outline  of  eugenics  it  is  our  business, 
however,  to  show  main  principles,  and  as  the  princi- 
ple expressed  in  the  phrase  "  racial  poisons  "  is  to  my 
mind  absolutely  cardinal  for  eugenics,  it  is  necessary 
here  to  comment,  as  I  have  already  done  in  the  Journal 
above  quoted,  upon  the  following  most  unfortunate 
deliverance  of  the  Commissioners :  "  That  both  on  the 
grounds  of  fact  and  of  theory,  there  is  the  highest 
degree  of  probability  that  feeble-mindedness  is  usually 
spontaneous  in  origin  —  that  is,  not  due  to  influences 
acting  on  the  parent.  .  .  ." 

The  word  spontaneous  has,  of  course,  no  meaning 
for  science,  or  rather  is  a  denial  of  the  fundamental 
axiom  of  science  that  causation  is  universal.  What 
the  Commissioners  mean  when  they  say  spontaneous 
is  "  sportaneous,"  like  the  occasional  production  of  a 
nectarine  by  a  peach  tree.  Apart  from  this  highly 
suspicious  phraseology,  there  is  the  still  more  unfor- 
tunate fact  that  the  Commissioners  have  lent  their  au- 
thority to  the  view  that  feeble-mindedness  is  not  due  to 


250      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

influences  acting  on  the  parent.  The  modern  student 
of  syphilis  will  be  astonished  at  this  pronouncement, 
and  also  the  student  of  lead-poisoning,  as  we  shall  see 
in  the  following  chapter. 

Every  reader  of  Dr.  Potts's  admirable  paper  will 
realize  that  this  conclusion  of  the  Commissioners  — 
"  not  due  to  influences  acting  on  the  parent " —  is  di- 
rectly opposed  to  an  extraordinary  mass  of  evidence 
and  to  the  opinion  of,  I  suppose,  every  authority  on 
the  subject,  British,  Continental  or  American.  The 
Commissioners'  reference  to  "  theory,"  coupled  with 
portions  of  the  evidence  given  before  them  by  wit- 
nesses who  suppose  that  the  alleged  influence  of  alco- 
hol as  a  cause  of  feeble-mindedness  controverts  the 
doctrine  of  the  non-transmission  of  "  acquired  char- 
acters/' makes  it  necessary  to  point  out  for  the  hun- 
dredth time  that,  for  lack  of  analysis  and  criticism  of 
terms,  the  most  prominent  followers  of  Galton  and 
Weismann  persistently  misunderstand  their  masters' 
teaching.  The  modern  doctrine  of  the  individual  as 
the  trustee  of  the  germ-cells  and  of  the  non-transmis- 
sion of  acquired  characters  is  Mr.  Galton's.  Mr.  Gal- 
ton  himself  does  not  question  and  never  has  questioned 
the  possibility  that  alcohol  may  cause  feeble-minded- 
ness.  There  is  no  reason  why  he  should.  If  we  take 
the  somewhat  unusual  course  of  consulting  the  words 
of  the  masters  before  we  swear  by  them,  we  find  —  as 
has  been  shown  —  that  Weismann,  who  subsequently 
stated  and  has  so  greatly  supported  Mr.  Galton's  view, 
has  expressly  repudiated  the  Commissioners'  idea  of 
his  "  theory."  The  Galton- Weismann  doctrine  is  a 
doctrine  of  heredity  proper, —  the  organic  relation  of 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       251 

living  generations.     It  does  not  assert  that  there  are 
two  unconnected  universes  —  the  one  made  of  germ- 
plasm   and   the   other   of   the   rest   of   nature.     The 
"  grounds  of  theory,"  or  rather,  our  elementary  physi- 
ological knowledge  of  the  nutrition  of  the  germ-plasm 
by  the  blood  of  its  host,  are  in  reality  precisely  the 
grounds  which  would  lead  us  to  expect  those  conse- 
quences of  parental  alcoholism  which  in  fact  we  find. 
ALCOHOLISM  AS  A  SYMPTOM  OF  DEGENERACY. —  We 
have  seen  that  alcohol  may  be  a  cause  of  degeneracy: 
we  now  have  to  recognize  the  converse  relation.     For 
an  authoritative  and  radical  discussion  of  the  problem, 
the  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  second   Norman 
Kerr    Memorial    Lecture,    delivered    by    Dr.    Welsh 
Branthwaite,    H.M.    Inspector   under   the   Inebriates' 
Act,  in  iQoy.1     He  speaks  as  "  the  only  man  in  close 
touch  with  all  inebriates  under  legal  detention  in  Eng- 
land."    He  reaches  most  important  conclusions  which 
are  generally  accepted,  as  the  discussion  shows.     He 
says,  "  the  more  I  see  of  habitual  drunkards,  the  more 
I  am  convinced  that  the  real  condition  we  have  to 
study,  the  trouble  we  have  to  fight,  and  the  source  of 
all  the  mischief,   is     ...     defect 2   in  mental  me- 
chanism, generally  congenital,  sometimes  more  or  less 
acquired.     ...     In  the  absence  of  alcohol,  the  same 
persons,  instead  of  meriting  the  term  inebriate  would 
have  proved  unreliable   in  many  ways;   they   would 
have  been  called  ne'er-do-weels,  profligates,  persons  of 

1  This  is  printed  in  the  British  Journal  of  Inebriety,  January, 
1908,  under  the  title  "  Inebriety,  its  Causation  and  Control  " — 
with  comments  by  numerous  authorities. 

2  The  author  says  "  inherent  defect."     I  have  omitted  the  ad- 
jective,   as    it    is    obviously    misused.    Antecedent    would    have 
been  the  better  word,  surely. 


252      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

lax  morality,  excitably  or  abnormally  passionate  in- 
dividuals, persons  of  melancholic  tendency  or  eccen- 
tric. ...  It  seems  to  me  exceedingly  doubtful 
whether  habitual  inebriety.  ...  is  ever  really 
acquired  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word  —  i.e.  in  the 
absence  of  some  measure  of  pre-existing  defect." 
Having  studied  2,277  inebriates,  committed  under  the 
Inebriates  Acts,  up  to  December  3ist,  1906,  Dr. 
Branthwaite  finds  62.6  per  cent,  of  these  mentally  de- 
fective. The  remainder  he  regards  as  of  average  men- 
tal capacity,  using,  however,  an  exceedingly  low  stand- 
ard of  what  that  capacity  is.  He  concludes  that  in  a 
large  majority  of  police-court  cases,  "  mental  disease 
was  the  condition  for  which  they  were  repeatedly  im- 
prisoned —  mental  disease  merely  masked  by  alcoholic 
indulgence.  .  .  .  The  majority  of  our  insane  in- 
ebriates have  become  alcoholic  because  of  their  tend- 
ency to  insanity.  .  .  .  Certain  peculiarities  in 
cranial  conformation,  general  physique,  and  conduct, 
have  long  been  recognized  as  evidences  of  congenital 
defect.  Nearly  all  the  1,375  cases  included  in  the  two 
defective  sections  of  our  table  have  given  evidence  of 
possessing  some  of  these  characteristic  peculiarities, 
and  it  is  morally  certain  that  the  large  majority  of 
them  started  life  handicapped  by  imperfect  brain  de- 
velopment." 1  The  lecture  is  accompanied  with  many 
photographs  clearly  showing  the  physical  marks  of 
congenital  defect,  and  Dr.  Branthwaite  remarks  that 
"  even  the  untrained  eye  should  meet  with  no  difficulty 
in  recognizing  '  something  wrong '  with  all  of  them." 
Of  the  proportion  of  mentally  defective  inebriates 

1  Italics  mine. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       253 

(62.6  per  cent,   of  the   whole)    mentioned   by   Dr. 
Branthwaite,  all  are  "  practically  hopeless  from  a  re- 
formation standpoint."     This  is  a  sufficient  comment, 
if  any  were  needed,  upon  repeated  imprisonment  for 
habitual    drunkenness — which,    as    Dr.    Branthwaite 
says  "  is  indefensible  and  inhumane/ '     He  adds  in  clos- 
ing that,  in  his  judgment,  habitual  drunkenness,  so  far 
as  women  are  concerned,  has  materially  increased,  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty-five  years,  "  which  I  have  spent  en- 
tirely amongst  drunkards  and  drunkenness."     The  un- 
fortunate people  whom  he  studies  "  are  not  in  the  least 
affected  by  orthodox  temperance  efforts;  they  continue 
to  propagate  drunkenness,  and  thereby  nullify  the  good 
results  of  temperance  energy.     Their  children,  born 
of  defective  parents,  and  educated  by  their  surround- 
ings, grow  up  without  a  chance  of  decent  life,  and  con- 
stitute the  reserve  from  which  the  strength  of  our  pres- 
ent army  of  habituals  is  maintained.     Truly  we  have 
neglected  in  the  past,  and  are  still  neglecting,  the  main 
source  of  drunkard  supply  —  the  drunkard  himself; 
cripple  that,  and  we  should  soon  see  some  good  result 
from  our  work.3' 

A  foremost  authority,  Dr.  F.  W.  Mott,  F.R.S.,  has 
independently  reached  the  same  conclusion  as  Dr. 
Branthwaite  —  that  the  chronic  inebriate  comes  as  a 
rule  of  an  inherently  tainted  stock.  (Dr.  Mott,  how- 
ever, reminds  us  that  "  if  alcohol  is  a  weed  killer,  pre- 
venting the  perpetuation  of  poor  types,  it  is  probably 
even  more  effective  as  a  weed  producer.")  Professor 
David  Ferrier,  F.R.S.,  the  great  pioneer  of  brain  lo- 
calization, in  reference  to  these  people,  speaks  of  "  the 
risk  of  propagation  of  a  race  of  drunkards  and  im- 


254       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

beciles."  Dr.  J.  C.  Dunlop,  H.M.  Inspector  under 
the  Inebriates  Act,  Scotland,  states  that  his  experi- 
ence leads  him  to  precisely  the  same  conclusion  as 
that  of  Dr.  Branthwaite.  Dr.  A.  R.  Urquhart,  an 
asylum  authority,  affirms  that  chronic  inebriety  "  is 
largely  an  affair  of  heredity  ...  is  a  symptom 
of  mental  defect,  disorder,  or  disease."  Dr.  Fleck,  an- 
other authority,  says :  "  It  is  my  strong  conviction  that 
a  large  percentage  of  our  mentally  defective  children, 
including  idiots,  imbeciles  and  epileptics,  are  the  de- 
scendants of  drunkards."  Mr.  McAdam  Eccles,  the 
distinguished  surgeon,  agrees;  so  does  Dr.  Langdon 
Down,  Physician  to  the  National  Association  for  the 
Welfare  of  the  Feeble-minded;  so  does  Mr.  Thomas 
Holmes,  the  Secretary  of  the  Howard  Association, 
who  remarks  that  "  our  habitual  criminals,  equally 
with  our  mental  inebriates,  are  not  responsible  beings, 
but  victims  of  mental  disease."  Finally  Miss  Kirby, 
Secretary  of  the  National  Association  for  the  Feeble- 
minded, insists  upon  the  obvious  conclusion  that  these 
people  must  be  detained  permanently.  She  says, 
"  when  one  case  of  a  dissolute  feeble-minded  woman 
in  America  is  quoted  as  the  mother  of  nine  feeble- 
minded children,  we  see  the  cause  why  inebriate  homes, 
and  also  reformatories,  penitentiaries,  and  workhouses 
are  full  to  overflowing,  and  society  taxed  beyond 
bearing  to  keep  them  there.  Such  institutions  out- 
number homes  for  the  feeble-minded."  l  Speaking  of 
the  62.6  per  cent,  noted  by  Dr.  Branthwaite,  she  says 
"  would  it  not  have  been  the  more  logical  course  to 

1  Italics  are  mine.  A  thousand  pounds  for  cure  —  which  does 
not  cure  —  and  twopence  for  prevention  is,  of  course,  the  rule 
with  a  half-educated  nation  always. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      255 

have  dealt  with  them  in  earlier  years  ?  "  Now  what 
would  that  have  accomplished?  It  would  have  saved 
the  future. 

THE  INEBRIATE  AS  PARENT. —  Is  it  a  mere  supposi- 
tion that  these  women  become  mothers?  Amongst 
those  committed  as  criminal  inebriates  (under  the 
London  County  Council)  in  1905-6,  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  of  those  admitted  to  reformatories  had  two 
thousand  two  hundred  children.  These  are  the  offi- 
cial figures.  As  to  the  quality  of  these  children  there 
is  unfortunately  no  possibility  of  question. 

We  may  quote  from  Dr.  Sullivan  a  notable  in- 
quiry :  — 

"  Even  more  striking  results  with  regard  to  the  several  forms 
of  degeneracy  were  obtained  by  Legrain,  who  investigated  the 
question  from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view.  Selecting 
from  the  material  at  his  disposal  all  those  cases  in  which 
ancestral  intemperance  had  appeared  to  exercise  a  causal  in- 
fluence, and  working  out  their  family  history,  he  collected  215 
observations  of  heredo-alcoholism  referring  to  one  generation, 
98  referring  to  two  generations,  and  7  referring  to  three  gen- 
erations. Of  the  children  of  the  first  generation,  508  in  num- 
ber, 196  were  mentally  degenerate,  the  affection  of  the  brain 
being  shown  more  particularly  by  moral  and  emotional  abnor- 
mality, while  intellectual  defects  were  less  pronounced;  106 
were  insane,  52  were  epileptic,  16  suffered  from  hystero-epilepsy, 
and  3  from  chorea;  and  39  had  convulsions  in  infancy. 
Amongst  the  children  of  the  second  generation,  who  numbered 
294,  the  intellectual  defects  were  more  marked,  idiocy,  im- 
becility, or  debility,  being  noted  in  the  offspring  of  54  out  of 
the  98  families  investigated.  In  23  out  of  the  33  families  in 
which  the  children  of  the  second  generation  had  reached  adult 
age,  one  or  more  of  them  were  insane.  Epilepsy  was  found 
in  40  families,  infantile  convulsions  in  42,  and  meningitis  in  14. 
The  third  generation  in  7  families  was  represented  by  17  chil- 
dren, all  of  whom  were  weak-minded,  imbecile,  or  idiotic;  2 
suffered,  moreover,  from  moral  insanity,  2  from  hysteria,  and 


256      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

2  from  epilepsy;  3  were  scrofulous,  and  4  had  convulsions  in 
childhood.  In  the  three  generations  taken  together  there  were, 
in  addition  to  the  children  referred  to  above,  174  infants  who 
were  dead-born  or  died  shortly  after  birth." 

Therefore,  the  chronic  inebriate  must  not  become  a 
parent.  Let  it  be  said  that  these  people  are  wicked 
or  have  no  self-control,  drink  for  fun  or  love  of  deg- 
radation, then  become  drunkards,  and  prejudicially 
affect  their  children.  The  conclusion  is  the  same. 
Have  any  theory  of  heredity  you  please  —  Lamarckian- 
ism,  Darwin's  pangenesis,  Weismannism,  Mendelism; 
it  matters  not  a  straw.  Look  at  the  thing  from  the 
uncharitable  religious  point  of  view,  or  from  the  char- 
itable scientific  view  which  realizes,  in  the  case  of  these 
women,  that  to  know  all  is  to  pardon  all  —  the  con- 
clusion is  still  the  same. 

THE  PRESENT  SCANDAL  OF  LONDON'S  INEBRIATES. — 

This  then,  being  so,  abundance  of  official  evidence 
having  been  gathered  in  addition  to  all  the  unofficial 
evidence,  let  us  consider  the  shameful  facts  which  are 
in  process  as  I  write,  and  are  still  so,  on  revision  of 
these  pages  a  year  later.  They  are  outlined  in  the 
reply  of  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone,  the  Home  Secretary, 
to  a  question  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  reply 
is  printed  in  full  in  The  Times,  February  iQth,  1908. 
There  was  a  paltry  squabble  between  the  Government 
and  the  London  County  Council  as  to  the  exact  num- 
ber of  shillings  that  each  was  to  contribute  per  week 
for  the  maintenance  of  inebriates.  The  London 
County  Council  was  plainly  in  the  wrong,  its  ignor- 
ance being  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  letter  to  The 
Times,  which  I  will  quote.  The  result  of  the  squab- 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       257 

ble  is  that,  as  Mr.  G.  R.  Sims  said,  "  We  shall  have 
something  like  five  hundred  women,  all  habitual  drunk- 
ards, passing  in  and  out  of  the  prisons,  a  peril  to  pub- 
licans, a  pest  to  the  police,  an  evil  example  to  the 
women  with  whom  they  mix,  and  free  to  bring  chil- 
dren into  the  world,  their  little  lives  poisoned  at  the 
source."  We  have  therefore  reverted  to  the  shameful, 
brutal,  and  disastrous  system  sufficiently  indicated  by 
the  history  of  Jane  Cakebread,  at  whom,  when  one  was 
a  schoolboy  as  ignorant  as  those  who  now  govern  us, 
one  used  to  laugh  because  she  had  been  convicted  so 
many  hundreds  of  times.1  As  the  present  writer  said 
in  raising  the  matter  at  a  meeting  of  the  Eugenics 
Education  Society,  the  future  children  of  these  women 
are  not  only  doomed  by  the  very  nature  of  their  germ- 
plasm,  but  they  will  actually  be  many  times  intoxi- 
cated not  merely  in  their  cradles  but  before  their 
birth.  There  is  no  wealth  but  life,  and  this  future 
wealth  of  England  is  to  be  fed  on  poisoned  food  and 
many  times  made  drunken  before  it  sees  the  light. 
The  meeting  of  the  Society  passed  a  unanimous  reso- 
lution— "that  this  society  enters  a  protest  against 
the  present  administration  of  the  Inebriates  Act, 
whereby  through  the  closing  of  inebriate  homes  some 
hundreds  of  chronic  inebriate  women  will  be  set  adrift 
in  London,  with  an  inevitably  deteriorating  result  to 
the  race."  2 

For  this  particular  scandal  the  London  County 
Council  was  the  more  to  blame.  Let  not  the  reader 
suppose  that  a  Liberal  government,  however,  was 

1  She  died  in  a  lunatic  asylum.    I  have  not  heard  that  society 
ever  offered  her  a  public  apology  for  its  brutality  to  her. 

2  See  Times  Report,  February  28,  1908. 


258      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

likely  to  remedy  the  immoderate  ignorance  of  a  "  Mod- 
erate "  County  Council  on  this  matter.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's reply  in  Parliament  was  an  exceptionally  long 
one,  but  did  not  contain  a  syllable  to  suggest  that  any 
question  of  the  future  is  involved,  or  that  a  woman 
may  become  a  mother.  Further,  the  Licensing  Bill 
introduced  just  when  we  were  drawing  public  atten- 
tion to  this  scandal  contained  nowhere  any  hint  of  the 
principle  that  you  must  attack  drunkenness  by  attack- 
ing "  the  main  source  of  drunkard  supply  —  the 
drunkard  himself."  These,  the  reader  will  remem- 
ber, are  the  words  of  His  Majesty's  Inspector.  There 
is  no  question  of  party-feeling,  then,  the  reader  will 
understand,  in  what  has  here  been  said.  Whether  la- 
beled Liberal,  Conservative,  Progressive  or  Moderate, 
ignorance  is  still  ignorance,  and  when  in  action  is  still 
what  Goethe  called  it,  the  most  dangerous  thing  in  the 
world. 

Pure  ignorance,  of  course,  is  one  of  the  things 
against  which  the  advocate  of  race-culture  must  fight. 
The  lack  of  imagination,  however,  is  another.  At 
present  we  have  few  homes  for  the  feeble-minded,  and 
many  for  what  the  feeble-minded  become :  few  for  pre- 
vention which  is  possible  and  cheap,  many  for  cure, 
which  is  impossible  and  dear.  The  average  county 
councillor  or  politician,  of  course,  is  rather  more  short- 
sighted than  the  average  man,  simply  because  you  can- 
not be  far-sighted  and  a  partisan.  What  his  defect 
of  vision  requires  is  impossible,  but  it  would  be  effec- 
tive. It  is  that  the  consequences  of  unworthy  parent- 
hood should  be  immediate,  instead  of  taking  months 
or  years  to  develop.  Any  one,  even  a  politician, 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       259 

can  see  cause  and  effect  when  they  are  close  enough 
together.  It  is  the  little  interval  that  the  political  eye 
cannot  pierce.  Nevertheless,  we  shall  one  day  learn 
to  think  of  the  next  generation  and  then  there  will  be 
an  end  of  the  politician  who  thinks  only  of  the  next 
election. 

IGNORANCE  ON  ITS  DEFENSE. —  The  state  of  what 
has  no  excuse  for  being  uninformed  opinion  was  only 
too  well  illustrated  in  a  letter  from  the  Chairman  of  the 
Public  Control  Committee  of  the  London  County 
Council  which  appeared  in  The  Times  for  February 
27th,  1908.  In  defending  the  London  County  Coun- 
cil the  writer  used  the  following  words :  "  Reform- 
ation, not  mere  detention,  was  its  object  when  it  insti- 
tuted its  reformatory  under  the  Inebriates  Acts. 
.  .  .  The  case  of  the  Public  Control  Committee  is 
that  the  removal  and  detention  of  the  hopeless  habit- 
uals  is  a  matter  for  the  police."  The  explanation  ag- 
gravates the  offense.  In  the  face  of  reiterated  expert 
opinion,  which  has  no  dissentient,  as  to  the  practical 
impossibility  of  reformation  —  you  cannot  reform 
what  has  never  been  formed,  viz.,  a  normally  devel- 
oped brain  —  here  we  find  a  man  in  this  responsible 
position,  a  man  who  has  the  power  to  put  his  ignor- 
ance into  action,  telling  us  that  the  London  County 
Council  aims  at  the  impossible  in  this  respect;  whilst, 
in  utter  defiance  of  the  future  and  of  the  useless  bru- 
tality of  the  police  court  method,  he  tells  us  that  these 
"  hopeless  habituals "  are  a  matter  for  the  police. 
Then,  by  way  of  making  the  thing  complete,  he  speaks 
of  "  mere  detention."  What  he  calls  "  mere  deten- 
tion "  is  everything,  for  it  saves  the  future  by  pre- 


260      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

venting  parenthood  on  the  part  of  members  of  the 
community  who,  more  certainly  than  any  others  that 
can  be  named,  are  unworthy  of  it.  The  adjective 
"  mere  "  is  only  too  adequate  a  measure  of  the  state  of 
opinion  which,  by  such  retrograde  courses  as  that  un- 
der discussion,  promises  to  destroy  the  British  people 
ere  long  —  and  therefore,  of  course,  the  Empire  of 
which  that  people  is  the  living  and  necessary  founda- 
tion. 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  the  word  "  reforma- 
tory," employed  in  the  Inebriates  Act  of  1898,  is  a 
highly  unfortunate  one.  It  suggests  a  practically  im- 
possible hope,  and  it  ignores  what,  I  submit,  must  and 
will  ere  long  be  regarded  as  the  essential  purpose, 
function  and  value  of  the  detention  of  inebriates  — 
the  prohibition  of  parenthood  on  their  part.  In  the 
case  of  women  beyond  the  child-bearing  age,  the  whole 
is  radically  altered.  If  it  amuses  the  legislature  to 
cherish  fantastic  hopes,  let  it  speak  about  the  reforma- 
tion of  these  women.  If  it  prefers  the  futile  and  dis- 
gusting cruelty  of  the  Jane  Cakebread  method  for 
such  women,  when  the  plan  for  reformation  is  found 
to  fail,  that  is  no  affair  of  ours  in  the  present  volume. 
Such  women  have  been  in  effect  sterilized  by  natural 
processes,  and  the  advocate  of  race-culture  can  afford 
to  ignore  them,  for  they  do  not  concern  him.  Let  me 
note,  however,  that,  of  294  female  inebriates  admitted 
to  reformatories  in  the  year  1906,  170  were  under 
forty  years  of  age,  92  of  whom  a  considerable  pro- 
portion would  be  possible  mothers,  were  between  forty 
and  fifty,  and  only  32  of  the  total  were  over  fifty  years 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       261 

of  age.1  It  may  be  said  that  the  lives  of  these  un- 
happy women  tend  to  be  terminated  early.  The  only 
pity  is  that  our  present  blindness  and  ignorance  in 
dealing  with  them  are  not  neutralized,  so  far  as  the  fu- 
ture is  concerned,  by  death  at  much  earlier  ages.  If 
such  a  reflection  strikes  the  reader  as  cruel,  how  much 
more  cruel  are  those  who  are  responsible  for  the  pres- 
ent case  of  the  women  inebriates  of  London? 

The  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  on  March  4th,  1908,  gave 
the  utmost  prominence  to  an  article  of  mine  on  this 
subject,  entitled  "An  Urgent  Public  Scandal,  The 
Case  of  London's  Inebriates."  In  this  article  I 
quoted  The  Times  letter  referred  to  above,  and  leveled 
the  most  vigorous  indictment  I  could  against  the  au- 
thors of  the  outrage  under  discussion.  N-one  of  them 
ventured  to  reply.  In  the  Referee  for  March  8th, 
1908,  however,  a  member  of  the  Public  Control  Com- 
mittee of  the  London  County  Council  made  an  at- 
tempt to  defend  its  action.  The  curious  reader  may 
refer  to  that  letter  as  one  more  instance  of  that  abso- 
lute blindness  to  the  nature  of  the  problem  and  to  any 
question  of  the  future  which  had  already  been  indi- 
cated in  The  Times  letter  from  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee.  Taking  these  two  letters  together,  we 
may  say  that  never  has  a  public  outrage  committed  by 
men  in  authority  been  more  lamely  or  ignorantly  de- 
fended. 

IGNORANCE  IN  ACTION  —  THE  PRESENT  FACTS. — 
Since  the  beginning  of  January,  1908,  the  brutal 

1  Report  of  the  Inspector  under  the  Inebriates  Acts  for  the 
year  1906. 


262      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

course  decreed  by  the  London  County  Council  has 
been  pursued.  The  wretched  and  deeply  to  be  pitied 
women  have  been  and  are  being  discharged  at  the  rate 
of  some  twenty  to  twenty-five  per  month  as  their  terms 
expire.  The  wiser  sort  of  Magistrates  and  the  Police- 
court  missionaries  are  at  their  wits'  ends,  and  no  won- 
der. This  country  offers  these  women  at  the  mo- 
ment no  refuge  whatever;  nothing  but  the  degrading 
and  destructive  round  —  police-court,  prison,  public- 
house,  pavement ;  da  capo.  Writing  to  The  Times  in 
relation  to  the  correspondence  there  published  (April 
1 8th,  1908)  between  the  London  County  Council  and 
the  Eugenics  Education  Society,  Sir  Alfred  Reynolds, 
Chairman  of  the  State  Inebriate  Reformatory  Visiting 
Board  and  a  Visiting  Justice  of  Holloway  Prison,  said 
(April  2ist,  1908)  :  — 

"  The  correspondence  published  in  The  Times  of  April  18, 
between  the  London  County  Council  and  the  President  of  the 
Eugenics  Education  Society  convinces  me  more  than  ever  that 
the  dispute  between  the  London  County  Council  and  the 
Treasury  is  a  scandal  and  folly  of  the  worst  description.  For 
the  sake  of  6d.  per  case  per  day,  the  London  County  Council 
(the  same  body  which  receives  half  a  million  sterling  from  the 
sale  of  intoxicating  liquor)  has  made  it  impossible  for  the 
metropolitan  magistrates  to  carry  out  the  Act  of  1898,  and 
the  result  is  that  500  of  the  worst  female  inebriates  are  al- 
ternately on  the  streets  or  in  prison  again,  and  the  former 
scenes  of  horror  and  drunken  violence  reappear.  Holloway 
Prison  will  soon  fill  up  again,  and  all  the  good  which  has  been 
done  during  the  last  few  years  will  be  lost.  ...  I  will  not 
trouble  you  further,  except  by  emphasizing  what  I  have  said 
by  adding  that  since  January  last  year  1,500  women  have  been 
notified  to  Scotland  Yard  as  always  in  and  out  of  prison  from 
the  County  of  London,  are  qualified  for  inebriate  homes,  and 
at  the  present  moment  there  are  over  50  of  this  number  in 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       263 

Holloway  Prison  serving  absolutely  useless  short  terms  of  im- 
prisonment." „ 

THE  LONDON  COUNTY  COUNCIL  PERFORMS  A  SERV- 
ICE FOR  PHILOSOPHY. —  As  we  have  seen,  there  exists 
or  seems  to  exist  a  radical  antagonism  in  certain  groups 
of  cases  between  the  interests  of  the  individual  and 
the  interests  of  the  race.  You  may  preserve  the 
quality  of  the  race,  as  the  Spartans  did,  by  exposing 
defective  infants;  you  may  be  kind  to  feeble-minded 
children,  as  we  are,  but  you  will  injure  the  race  in 
the  long  run.  Darwin  saw  this  more  than  a  gener- 
ation ago,  but  instead  of  suggesting  the  prohibition 
of  parenthood  to  the  unfit,  he  said  that  we  must  bear 
the  ill  effects  of  their  multiplication  rather  than  sacri- 
fice the  law  of  love.  Huxley  similarly  said  that  moral 
evolution  consisted  in  opposing  natural  evolution. 
Now  it  has  for  some  time  been  evident  that  this  an- 
tagonism need  not  be  radical  if,  whilst  devoting  hos- 
pitals and  charity  and  medical  science  to  the  care  of 
the  unfit,  we  deny  them  the  privilege  of  parenthood. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  London  County  Council  by 
its  present  action  has  performed  a  service  to  biolog- 
ical philosophy  by  showing  that  it  is  possible  to  com- 
bine the  maximum  of  brutality  to  the  individual  and 
to  the  present  with  the  maximum  of  injury  to  the  race 
and  to  the  future.  In  his  report  for  1906  Dr.  Branth- 
waite  cites  the  history  of  a  girl  who,  at  the  age  of 
fifteen  years  and  nine  months,  was  convicted  in  1881 
for  being  drunk  and  disorderly.  During  the  next 
quarter  of  a  century  she  was  sentenced  115  times, 
and  in  January  1906  was  sent  to  a  Reformatory. 


264      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

She  has  twice  attempted  to  commit  suicide.  Her 
case  is,  of  course,  now  hopeless,  and  Dr.  Branthwaite 
predicts  that  her  life  will  end  by  suicide.  Let  any 
one  read  Dr.  Branthwaite' s  Report  or  Dr.  Robert 
Jones'  account  of  Jane  Cakebread,  or  let  him  acquaint 
himself  with  instances  as  they  are  to  be  daily  seen, 
and  he  will  agree  that  the  maximum  of  brutality  is 
no  excessive  phrase  to  describe  the  policy  of  shame 
at  present  pursued  in  London :  if,  indeed,  seeing  that 
we  now  have  knowledge,  it  should  not  be  described 
as  something  still  worse. 

As  for  the  injury  to  the  future,  we  already  know 
what  the  present  policy  effects.  We  may  grant,  then, 
to  the  London  County  Council  that  it  has  performed 
a  service  for  philosophy  in  showing  that  it  is  possible 
to  combine  both  kinds  of  evil  in  one  harmonious  pol- 
icy. Nor  let  the  reader  suppose  that  any  partisan 
feeling  infects  this  protest.  The  Government  is  also 
to  blame.  Even  had  the  L.C.C.  declined  to  contribute 
anything  at  all  to  the  cost  of  the  proper  policy,  no 
really  educated  and  honorable  Government  had  any 
choice  but  to  undertake  all  the  cost  itself  —  even  at 
the  cost  of  office!  Better  were  —  in  Mr.  Bal four's 
words,  the  wisest  ones  he  ever  uttered  "  the  barren 
exchange  of  one  set  of  tyrants,  or  jobbers,  for  an- 
other," than  the  horrible  birth  of  thousands  of  feeble- 
minded babies. 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  ECONOMY. —  It  would  be  easy 
to  show  that  the  present  policy  is  not  economical 
even  as  regards  the  cost  of  these  women  themselves, 
and  even  if  it  be  assumed  that  gold  is  wealth.  But 
consider  the  remoter  cost.  During  the  period  when 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      265 

the  present  writer  was  making  public  protests  very 
nearly  every  day  on  this  matter  without  any  imme- 
diate effect,  and  only  one  month  after  the  London 
County  Council  had  attempted  to  defend  itself  on 
the  ground  of  economy  when  challenged  by  the  Eugen- 
ics Education  Society,  there  was  formally  opened, 
with  a  flourish  of  trumpets,  the  eighty-seventh  school 
for  feeble-minded  children  established  by  the  London 
County  Council.  It  accommodates  sixty  such  children 
(besides  sixty  physically  defective).  This  school  cost 
£6,000  to  build  alone.  The  sixty  feeble-minded  chil- 
dren whom  it  accommodates  are  not  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  the  7,000  admittedly  feeble-minded  school 
children  in  London  —  a  number  which  is  probably 
not  more  than  a  third  or  a  fourth  of  the  real  number. 
It  has  been  exhaustively  proved  that  feeble-minded 
children  are  mainly,  at  any  given  time,  the  progeny 
of  feeble-minded  persons  such  as  constitute  the  ma- 
jority of  chronic  inebriates.  Ignorance  is  again  in 
action.  On  the  one  hand,  the  London  County  Coun- 
cil, quarreling  over  pence,  effectively  suspends  the 
working  of  the  Inebriates  Acts,  and  thus  ensures  that 
the  supply  of  feeble-minded  children  shall  be  kept  up. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  takes  these  children,  cares  for 
them  until  they  are  capable  of  becoming  parents,  and 
then  turns  them  upon  the  world.  The  Chairman  at 
the  opening  ceremony  of  the  School  referred  to  said 
that  "  at  the  special  schools  work  was  being  done 
which  would  advance  the  intelligence  of  the  pupils, 
and  thus  benefit  the  entire  race."  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  concentrate  more  ignorance  in  fewer  words  or 
in  ten  times  as  many. 


266      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

A  HOME  OFFICE  COMMITTEE  APPOINTED. —  The 
almost  continuous  protest  of  two  months  did,  how- 
ever, bear  fruit,  the  Home  Secretary  appointing  a 
Committee  to  consider  the  question  of  the  amendment 
of  the  Inebriates  Acts.  But  the  legal  brutalities  de- 
scribed are  still  being  perpetrated,  and  the  future  is  be- 
ing compromised.  The  London  County  Council  may 
be  advised  to  make  arrangements  for  building  a  few 
score  more  schools  for  defective  children  in  antici- 
pation of  the  growing  need  which  it  is  assuring. 

Never  again,  when  it  is  past,  must  we  permit  the 
present  abominable  policy.  It  is  for  public  opinion 
to  effect  this,  and  public  opinion  has  only  to  be  di- 
rected to  the  case  in  order  to  realize  its  nature.  If 
the  reader  pleases  he  may  discount  altogether  the  eu- 
genic argument,  though  I  believe  that  in  the  long  run 
that  is  more  important  than  any  other.  But  if  he 
confines  his  attention  solely  to  the  cruelties  perpe- 
trated upon  these  helpless  women,  infinitely  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning,  and  especially  if  he  con- 
siders the  testimony  of  Sir  Alfred  Reynolds  above 
quoted;  he  will  surely  lend  his  aid  to  put  an  end  to  a 
state  of  affairs  which  is  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization. 
We  talk  of  progress,  and  we  are  indeed  incalculably 
indebted  to  our  ancestors,  but  let  any  one  consider  the 
case  of  the  poor  child,  now  a  wrecked  woman,  quoted 
above,  and  let  him  consider  what  it  may  be  to  be  an 
heir  of  all  the  ages  in  the  greatest  city  of  the  world 
to-day. 

It  will  be  sufBciently  evident  that  if  any  warrant 
were  needed  for  the  formation  of  the  Eugenics  Edu- 
cation Society  or  for  the  publication  of  the  present 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL     267 

volume,  it  would  be  found  only  too  abundantly  in  the 
outrage  upon  decency  and  morality  and  science  and  the 
future  which  is  at  present  in  perpetration.  Further, 
if  any  warrant  were  required  for  the  incessant  reiter- 
ation of  the  principle  that  there  is  no  wealth  but  life, 
it  would  be  found  in  the  fact  that  this  outrage  is  being 
committed  in  the  name  of  economy.  Yet  even  if  the 
sane  and  sober  London  rate-payer  were  saved  a  few 
shillings  now,  as  he  will  not  be,  his  children  will  have 
to  pay  pounds  in  the  future  for  the  support  of  these 
women's  children.  Economy,  forsooth,  when  the 
rates  of  London  benefited  to  the  extent  of  £559,000 
out  of  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  in  1905,  and 
spent  £8,000  in  the  maintenance  of  committed  ineb- 
riates! Need  one  apologize  for  declaring  again,  that 
we  require  a  new  political  economy  which  teaches 
that  gold  is  for  the  purchase  of  life,  and  not  life  for 
the  purchase  of  gold.  For  the  public  outrage  under 
discussion,  whereby  an  untold  measure  of  life,  present 
and  tq  come,  "  breathing  and  to  be,"  is  to  be  destroyed 
and  defiled  for  a  squabble  over  shillings,  one  can 
adequately  quote  only  the  words  of  Romeo  to  the 
apothecary :  "  There  is  thy  gold ;  worse  poison  to 
men's  souls,  doing  more  murders  in  this  loathsome 
world,  than  those  poor  compounds  that  thou  may'st 
not  sell." 

THE  LAST  TOUCHES  OF  ART. —  If  this  protest  hurts 
any  one's  feelings,  that  cannot  be  helped.  When  the 
production  of  thousands  of  feeble-minded  children  is 
involved,  the  self-esteem  of  what  Mr,  George  Mere- 
dith calls  the  "  accepted  imbecile  "  does  not  matter. 
The  question  is  how  soon  do  we  propose  to  rectify  our 


268      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

present  course  in  this  respect,  a  course  which  is  a 
shame  and  a  disgrace  to  our  age  and  nation,  and 
which  shall  in  any  case  be  placed  on  record  in  printed 
words,  as  well  as  in  young  children  stamped  with  de- 
generacy—  in  order  to  point  for  future  ages  the 
question  "An  nescis,  mi  fili,  quantilla  prudentia  reg- 
itur  orbis?"  "With  how  little  wisdom" — and, 
whilst  perpetrating  this  shame,  ignoring  the  one  in- 
disputable means  by  which  legislation  can  and  must 
check  drunkenness,  nearly  all  other  measures  having 
failed  since  Babylon  was  an  Empire,  they  were  quar- 
reling about  a  temperance  measure,  so-called,  which 
regarded  the  question  of  transference  of  money  from 
one  pocket  to  another  as  vital,  and  ignored  the  one 
vital  question,  which  is  the  question  of  life :  a  measure 
showing  scarcely  a  sign,  either  in  its  text  or  in  the 
words  of  its  supporters  or  in  the  words  of  its  oppo- 
nents, that  the  question  of  the  future  race  had  ever  en- 
tered into  the  head  of  a  public  man ;  a  measure  which 
left  the  protection  of  children  from  the  public-house  to 
the  discretion  of  local  magistrates;  a  measure  which 
certainly,  whatever  else  it  might  effect,  could  not  have 
been  more  carefully  drawn  if  its  object  were  to  pro- 
mote that  secret  drinking  amongst  women 1  which 
means  the  poisoning  of  the  racial  life  even  before  it 
sees  the  light.  This  then  "  mi  fill'/  was  what  was 
called  practical  statesmanship  in  the  year  1908  of 
the  Christian  Era:  and  in  order  that  no  last  touch 
might  be  wanted  from  the  hand  of  ignorance  and  the 

i1  This  drinking  by  women,  which  means  drinking  by  mothers 
present,  expectant  or  possible,  is  rapidly  increasing  in  Great 
Britain,  though  almost  unknown  in  our  Colonies.  It  is  at 
the  heart  that  Empires  rot. 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       269 

blasphemous  idolatry  which  worships  gold  to  the  neg- 
lect of  the  only  true  god,  which  is  life,  they  an- 
nounced just  at  this  time  the  issue  of  a  Royal 
Commission  to  inquire  and  report  upon  the  manufac- 
ture and  variations  in  the  compositions  of  whiskey. 
It  has  been  a  public  joke  for  years  past  that  no  one 
can  answer  the  question  "  what  is  whiskey  ?  "  Well, 
then,  I  will  answer  the  question,  and  we  may  save  the 
labor  of  such  commissions  hereafter.  Whiskey  is  a 
racial  poison,  and  there  is  nothing  else  to  know  about 
it  worth  knowing  for  the  future.  Those  who  will 
never  become,  or  can  no  longer  become,  fathers  or 
mothers,  may  do  as  they  please  about  whiskey,  so  far 
as  the  ideal  of  eugenics  or  race-culture  is  concerned. 
They  may  say,  if  they  like,  that  their  personal  habits 
are  their  affair  and  concern  no  one  else.  Under  the 
influence  of  whiskey  they  may,  perhaps,  even  believe 
this.  But  for  those  who  are  to  be  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  the  future,  such  a  plea  is  idle.  The  ques- 
tion is  not  solely  their  affair ;  it  is  the  affair  of  the  un- 
born, and  we  who  champion  the  unborn  are  bound  to 
say  so. 

The  time  will  come  when  it  is  recognized  that  there 
are  two  classes  of  active  mind  in  society:  those  who 
worship  and  uphold  the  past,  and  will  always  sacrifice 
the  living  to  the  dead,  nay  more,  the  unborn  to  the 
dead.  The  ultimate  fate  of  these  is  the  fate  of  her 
who  looked  backwards  to  the  shame  and  destruction 
from  which  she  had  escaped.  She  was  turned  into  a 
pillar  of  salt.  And  there  are  those  who  worship  and 
work  for  the  future,  who  will,  without  hesitation,  sac- 
rifice the  interests  of  the  dead  (who  are  no  longer  in- 


270      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

terested)  to  those  of  the  living  and  the  coming  race  — 
nay  more,  who  will  even  sacrifice  the  interests  of  a  few 
worthless  living  to  those  of  many  yet  unborn,  that 
they  may  be  worthy.  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead ; 
let  the  worshipers  of  the  dead  and  dying  ask  them- 
selves whether  the  life  that  is  and  the  life  that  is  to 
be  do  not  demand  their  homage  and  service.  Not 
until  some  such  principles  as  these  are  recognized  shall 
we  rightly  deal  with  the  drink  problem,  amongst  many 
others,  and  bring  to  it  the  mental  and  moral  enlight- 
enment which  makes  for  life  on  the  higher  plane,  just 
as  surely  and  just  as  indispensably  as  the  light  of  the 
sun  creates  all  life  whatsoever. 

MR.  BALFOUR  ON  LEGISLATION. —  Surely  the  moral 
of  this  argument  is  clear.  The  most  important,  the 
most  radical,  the  most  practicable  of  all  temperance 
measures  is  that  which  attacks  the  main  source  of 
supply  of  the  drunkard.  When  a  Licensing  Bill  is 
brought  before  the  House  of  Commons,  Mr.  Balfour 
repeats  the  ancient  piece  of  nonsense  that  you  cannot 
make  people  moral  by  Act  of  Parliament —  an  as- 
sertion that  any  child  can  see  to  be  a  muddle.  We 
may  let  that  pass  for  the  moment,  but  Mr.  Balfour  is 
a  thinker,  a  student  of  biology,  and  heredity  in  espe- 
cial, and  he  has  lately  been  lecturing  on  "  Decadence." 
Might  it  not  have  been  expected  that  such  a  man 
would  take  an  opportunity  to  say  what  the  humblest 
serious  student  of  the  subject  would  have  said,  and 
thereby  to  bring  far  more  damaging  criticism  against 
the  opposing  party's  bill  than  any  he  hinted  at?  He 
might  have  said,  "  Your  bill,  even  if  passed,  will  ac- 
complish little,  or  relatively  little,  at  great  cost,  be- 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      271 

cause  you  have  no  grasp  of  the  principles  of  the  sub- 
ject. You  have  no  idea  of  what  drunkenness  really 
is.  If  your  bill  were  worth  a  straw  it  would  seek  as 
a  primary  principle  to  safeguard  the  race  by  arresting 
the  supply  of  potential  drunkards.  Your  endless 
financial  clauses  deal  merely  with  the  re-distribution 
of  money,  but  your  bill  has  no  clause  that  deals  with 
the  only  business  of  governments,  the  creation  and 
the  economy  of  the  only  real  wealth,  which  is  human 
life."  That  is  what  the  ex-Premier  did  not  say.  He 
had  plenty  of  passion,  plenty  of  party-feeling  to  give 
fire  to  his  words,  but  so  far  as  knowledge  is  con- 
cerned or  any  conception  of  what  alone  is  the  wealth 
of  nations,  there  was  nothing  to  choose  between  Mr. 
Balfour  and  Mr.  Asquith.  Passion  you  must  have  if 
you  are  to  do  anything,  but  not  party-passion :  whereas 
if  you  have  passion  for  life  and  for  children,  not  only 
will  it  be  effective,  but  notwithstanding  all  that 
psychologists  tell  us  as  to  the  vitiation  of  judgment 
by  emotion,  it  will  actually  teach  you  the  supreme  and 
eternal  truths. 

In  this  book  hitherto  little  has  been  said  as  to  formal 
eugenic  legislation.  I  believe  with  fitienne  that  it  is 
opinion  which  governs  the  world:  legislation  in  front 
of  public  opinion  brings  all  law  into  contempt.  But 
in  his  first  speech  opposing  the  Licensing  Bill  of  1908, 
Mr.  Balfour,  the  author  of  the  Licensing  Bill  of  1904, 
decried  legislation.  "  Intemperance,"  he  said,  "  is  a 
vice:"  and  legislation  can  do  practically  nothing  in 
dealing  with  vice.  Plainly  Mr.  Balfour  is  ignorant 
of  the  nature  of  intemperance,  which  largely  depends 
upon  transmitted  and  inherent  brain  defect.  He 


272      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

therefore  lost  his  opportunity  of  pointing  out  in  what 
fashion  you  can  actually,  notwithstanding  the  parrots, 
make  people  sober  by  Act  of  Parliament  —  viz.,  by 
forbidding  parenthood  to  those  whose  children  would 
almost  certainly  become  drunkards.  We  who  are  not 
politicians,  much  less  ex-Premiers,  must  make  our 
own  proposals  then.  Last  year's  criticism  of  the  Lon- 
don County  Council  began,  I  believe,  to  educate  pub- 
lic opinion  to  the  necessary  point.  In  the  name  of 
race-culture  and  the  New  Patriotism,  in  the  name  of 
morality  and  charity  and  science,  we  must  demand, 
obtain  and  carry  into  effect  the  most  stringent  and 
comprehensive  legislation,  such  as  effectively  to  forbid 
parenthood  on  the  part  of  the  chronic  inebriate.  Ere 
long,  the  person  who  would  have  become  a  chronic 
inebriate  will  be  cared  for  and  protected  during  child- 
hood and  thereafter  —  with  the  same  result.  This 
solution  of  the  problem  is  denounced,  says  Dr.  Arch- 
dall  Reid, 

'*.  .  .  as  horrible,  as  Malthusian,  as  immoral,  as  imprac- 
ticable. .  .  .  The  alternative  is  more  horrible  and  more 
immoral  still.  If  by  any  means  we  save  the  inebriates  of  this 
generation,  but  permit  them  to  have  offspring,  future  genera- 
tions must  deal  with  an  increased  number  of  inebriates.  .  .  . 
The  experience  of  many  centuries  has  rendered  it  sufficiently 
plain,  that  while  there  is  drink,  there  will  be  drunkards  till  the 
race  be  purged  of  them.  We  have  therefore  no  real  choice 
between  Temperance  Reform  by  the  abolition  of  drink,  and 
Temperance  Reform  by  the  elimination  of  the  drunkard.  .  .  . 
Which  is  the  worse;  that  miserable  drunkards  shall  bear 
wretched  children  to  a  fate  of  starvation  and  neglect  and 
early  death,  or  of  subsequent  drunkenness  and  crime,  or  that, 
by  our  deliberate  act,  the  procreation  of  children  shall  be  for- 
bidden them?  We  are  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma  from  which 
there  is  no  escape.  .  .  .  But  our  time  has  seen  the  labors 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      273 

of  Darwin.  We  know  now  the  great  secret.  Science  has  given 
us  knowledge  and  with  it  power.  We  have  learnt  that  if  we 
labor  for  the  individual  alone,  we  shall  surely  fail;  but  that 
if  we  make  our  sacrifice  greater,  if  we  labor  for  the  race  as 
well,  we  must  succeed.  Let  us  then  by  all  means  seek  to  save 
the  individual  drunkard;  with  all  our  power  let  us  endeavor 
to  make  and  keep  him  sober;  but  let  us  strive  also  to  eradicate 
the  type;  for,  as  I  have  said,  if  we  do  it  not  quickly  and  with 
mercy,  Nature  will  do  it  slowly  and  with  infinite  cruelty." 

WOMEN  AND  CHILDREN  FIRST. —  The  noble  cry  on 
a  sinking  ship  is  "  women  and  children  first."  This 
perhaps  is  a  plea  for  the  service  of  helplessness  as 
such,  though  it  might  be  equally  warranted  as  a  de- 
mand for  the  sacrifice  of  the  present  for  the  future. 
And  assuredly  the  cry  for  a  sinking  society  must  also 
be  "  women  and  children  first."  It  is  well  if  the  cry 
be  raised  when  the  ship  of  state  is  not  yet  sinking,  but 
only  water-logged  or  alcohol-logged.  Temperance 
legislation  and  the  agitation  for  temperance  reform 
are  themselves  in  need  of  reform.  Their  appalling 
record  of  failure  —  for  it  is  such  a  record  —  should 
help  even  the  fanatic,  one  thinks,  to  accept  the  intro- 
duction of  the  eugenic  idea  as  a  new  principle  of  life 
for  the  temperance  cause.  In  the  present  state  of 
custom  and  opinion,  the  teetotaler  cannot  force  his 
own  wise  habits  upon  the  vast  majority  who  do  not 
agree  with  him.  If  he  has  an  infinite  amount  of  en- 
ergy and  resources,  let  him  spend  as  much  of  both  as 
he  pleases  upon  the  sort  of  propaganda  with  which  we 
are  familiar:  he  will,  by  the  hypothesis,  still  have  an 
infinite  amount  of  both  available  for  the  cause  to 
which  the  principle  of  race-culture  would  direct  him. 
If,  however,  his  energy  and  resources  are  finite  —  if, 


274      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

indeed,  they  are  by  no  means  excessive  in  proportion 
to  the  urgent  task  which  the  ideal  of  race-culture  asks 
of  him,  then  let  him  not  fritter  away  a  moment  or  a 
penny  or  a  breath  until  he  has  achieved  the  process 
of  salvage  or  salvation  which  is  expressed  in  the  phrase 
"  women  and  children  first."  More  accurately,  per- 
haps, our  cry  must  be  "parents  and  possible  parents 
first,"  and  this  for  present  practical  purposes  is  equiv- 
alent to  "  women  and  children  first."  It  would  have 
been  well  if  the  temperance  propaganda  from  the  first, 
say  two  generations  ago  in  Great  Britain,  had  adopted 
this  motto.  But  its  adoption  is  far  more  urgent  to- 
day in  consequence  of  the  fact,  unfortunately  no  longer 
to  be  questioned,  that  drinking  amongst  women,  the 
mothers  of  the  future,  is,  and  has  been  for  some  time, 
steadily  increasing.  Children  yet  unborn  must  be  pro- 
tected from  the  injury  which  may  be  inflicted  upon 
them  by  those  who  will  be  their  mothers.  Yet  though 
there  is  more  need  for  action  in  this  regard  than  ever 
before,  and  though  Mr.  G.  R.  Sims  in  his  books  The 
Cry  of  the  Children  and  the  The  Black  Stain  has 
lately  drawn  wide  attention  to  the  subject,  we  have 
seen  that  the  principle  of  women  and  children  first,  a 
principle  derived  from  the  ideal  of  race-culture,  and 
directly  serving  that  ideal,  was  almost  wholly  ignored 
in  the  Licensing  Bill  of  1908.  The  motto  "  money 
not  motherhood  "  is  a  bad  one  for  the  framers  of  a 
temperance  measure.  If  ever  we  have  a  temperance 
measure  worthy  the  name  the  motto  of  its  framers 
will  be  "  motherhood  not  money."  Such  a  measure 
will  most  certainly  have  to  introduce  the  principle  of 
indeterminate  sentences  —  or  rather  indeterminate 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       275 

care  —  in  the  treatment  of  the  chronic  inebriate. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  two  opinions  as  to  the  urgent 
and  indispensable  necessity  of  such  treatment,  nor 
yet  as  to  its  scrupulous  humanity  both  for  the  unfor- 
tunate victim  himself  or  herself  and  for  the  unborn. 

The  word  "  reformatory  "  had  better  be  abolished 
from  official  language,  since  it  leads  accredited  people 
to  write  to  The  Times  such  foolishness  as  "  reform- 
ation, not  mere  detention." 

Further,  the  expense  of  dealing  with  the  chronic 
inebriate  in  this,  the  only  humane  and  economical 
way,  had  better  fall  entirely  and  directly  upon  the 
state.  It  must  not  be  possible  again  for  a  local  au- 
thority, even  the  London  County  Council,  however  ig- 
norant or  criminally  careless,  to  commit  a  public  in- 
decency like  that  already  recorded  —  but  the  full 
record  of  which  none  of  us  will  live  to  see. 

AN  UNPUNISHED  MAGISTRATE. —  Yet  again,  in 
this  measure  there  must  be  some  means  of  compelling 
such  magistrates  as  cannot  be  educated.  At  present, 
even  when  accommodation  is  provided,  the  unfortunate 
creature  of  the  Jane  Cakebread  type,  when  she  is  only 
just  beginning  to  enter  into  competition  with  that 
horrible  record,  and  when  she  is  therefore  most  dan- 
gerous as  regards  the  possibility  of  motherhood,  can 
be  detained  only  by  the  magistrate's  order.  Now  it 
is  very  much  less  trouble  for  all  concerned  to  say 
"  five  shillings  or  a  week  "  than  to  make  the  necessary 
inquiries  in  such  cases.  Further,  in  putting  this  meas- 
ure of  one's  dreams  upon  the  statute  book,  we  shall 
have  to  remember  that  the  idea  of  protective  care  and 
the  eugenic  idea  are,  to  say  the  least,  not  native  in 


276     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

the  mind  of  every  magistrate.  In  Dr.  Welsh  Branth- 
waite's  report  for  1906,  there  is  quoted  a  case  where 
a  woman  had  been  habitually  drunken  for  at  least 
thirteen  years  previous  to  her  committal  to  a  reform- 
atory. Her  known  sentences  included  27  fines,  and 
138  terms  of  imprisonment.  She  was  feeble-minded. 
On  the  termination  of  her  reformatory  sentence  the  dis- 
charge certificate  described  her  as  "  quite  unfit  to  con- 
trol her  own  actions,"  and  "  certain  to  succumb  to  the 
first  temptation  to  drink."  The  woman  was  found 
drunk  a  few  hours  after  discharge.  Said  the  magis- 
trate, "  this  case  clearly  proves  that  it  is  almost  use- 
less trying  to  reform  such  women  as  this.  ...  I 
think,  after  all,  the  old  way  is  best  and  therefore  I  sen- 
tence her  to  one  month  with  hard  labor."  I  refrain 
from  suggesting  a  suitable  sentence  for  the  magistrate ; 
doubtless  he  got  off  scot-free. 

Surely  we  might  agree,  as  regards  this  racial  poison, 
that  at  least  parenthood  and  the  future  must  be  kept 
out  of  its  clutches.  It  may  be,  it  assuredly  is,  a  de- 
plorable thing  that  the  woman  of  fifty,  to  take  an 
instance,  should  become  alcoholic,  but  at  the  worst  this 
h  only  the  fate  of  an  individual  —  in  the  main  at  any 
rate.  Such  principles  as  these  will  some  day  be  the 
cardinal  principles  of  legislation,  and  not  only  in  re- 
gard to  alcohol.  The  time  will  and  must  come  when 
public  opinion  will  urge,  whether  in  the  name  of  a 
New  Imperialism  or  of  common  morality  or  of  self- 
protection,  that  in  our  attempts  to  deal  with  alcohol, 
we  shall  begin  by  removing  its  fingers  from  the  throat 
of  the  race :  "  Women  and  children  first." 

THE  REPORT  OF  THE  INEBRIATES  COMMITTEE. In 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL       277 

January,  1909,  the  Committee  which  was  at  last  ap- 
pointed to  consider  this  matter  made  its  Report.1  I 
have  not  the  literary  capacity  to  comment  adequately 
upon  the  political  wisdom  which  brings  in  a  Licensing 
Bill,  devotes  vast  labor  and  much  time  to  it  and  has  it 
rejected  by  the  House  of  Lords,  while  such  a  Com- 
mittee as  this  is  at  work.  The  spirit  of  the  poli- 
tician who  spoke  of  "  those  damned  professors  " 
still  reigns  over  us,  and  will  certainly  ruin  us  unless 
speedily  deposed.  However,  here  is  the  Report,  and 
its  recommendations  are  earnestly  to  be  commended 
to  the  study  of  all  students.  New  legislation,  as  it 
shows,  is  urgently  required,  and  it  is  pre-eminently 
the  duty  of  every  eugenist  to  hasten  its  coming.  This 
is  not  a  party  question,  but  merely  a  national  one,  and 
will  therefore  be  dealt  with  by  politicians  only  under 
external  pressure,  such  as  produced  the  Committee 
itself.  The  finger  of  public  opinion  must  apply  that 
pressure  forthwith. 

The  recommendations  of  the  Committee  are  so  ad- 
mirable and  thorough  and  eugenic  in  effect  as  to  tem- 
per one's  disappointment  that  the  Report  contains  no 
definite,  overt  recognition  of  the  eugenic  idea.  I  had 
hoped  that  the  evidence  prepared  and  submitted  to  the 
Committee  for  the  Eugenics  Education  Society  would 
suffice  to  ensure  the  recognition  of  the  eugenic  idea  in 
the  Report,  for  the  first  time,  we  may  suppose,  in  of- 
ficial history.  For  the  present  we  may  merely  note 
that  the  suggestions  made  in  preceding  pages  are  con- 
firmed by  the  Committee's  Report,  and  that  the  next 


1  Cd.  4438.    Price  4tf>d.    Volume  of  evidence  Cd.  4439.    Price 
as. 


278       PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

legislation  bearing  on  the  question  of  temperance  will 
undoubtedly  have  to  attack  the  subject  in  this  radical 
manner  —  by  what  will  be  in  effect  the  sterilization  of 
the  habitual  drinker  of  either  sex  and  any  social  status. 
The  Committee  do  not  recognize  that  that  is  what 
their  Report  involves,  much  less  that  that  gives  it  its 
real  value;  but  so  it  is,  as  the  year  1950  will  be  late 
enough  to  show. 

Much  time  and  trouble  were  spent  in  preparing  for 
the  Eugenics  Education  Society  answers  to  many  of 
the  questions  submitted  to  it  by  the  Committee,  and 
the  Society  may  fairly  claim,  I  think,  that  its  original 
services  to  this  matter  were  well-continued.  The 
present  writer  also  prepared  for  the  Society  a  Mem- 
orandum (Minutes  of  Evidence,  p.  189),  which  per- 
haps fairly  sums  up,  in  the  briefest  possible  space,  the 
indisputable  relations  between  alcohol  and  parenthood, 
and  which  may  therefore  be  reprinted  here.  The 
reader  will  notice  an  omission  in  that  nothing  is  said 
as  to  the  effects  of  alcohol  in  injuring  the  germ-cells 
of  healthy  stock  of  either  sex.  The  omission  was 
made  in  order  that  nothing  possibly  disputable  might 
be  included.  It  has  already  been  argued  that  on 
grounds  both  of  fact  and  of  theory  there  is  every 
reason  to  recognize  in  alcohol,  as  in  syphilis  and  in 
lead,  a  racial  poison,  originating  racial  degeneration 
which,  in  accordance  with  generally  recognized  princi- 
ples, shows  itself  in  the  latest,  highest  and  therefore 
most  delicate  portions  of  the  organism. 

The  Memorandum  is  as  follows : — 

"  It  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  children  of  the 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      279 

drunkard  are  on  the  average  less  capable  of  citizenship 
on  account  of 

(a)  The  inheritance  of  nervous  defect  inherent  in 

the  parent. 

(b)  Intra-uterine  alcoholic  poisoning  in  cases  where 

the  mother  is  an  inebriate. 

(c)  Neglect,     ill-feeding,    accidents,    blows,     etc., 

which  are  responsible  on  the  one  hand  for 
much  infant  mortality,  and  combined  with 
the  possible  causes  before  mentioned,  for  the 
ultimate  production  of  adults  defective  both 
in  body  and  mind. 

"  It  would  appear,  then,  that  the  drunkard,  if  not  ef- 
fectively restrained,  conduces  to  the  production  of  a 
defective  race,  involving  a  grave  financial  burden  upon 
the  sober  portion  of  the  community,  to  say  nothing  of 
higher  considerations.  It  therefore  seems  to  the  Eu- 
genics Education  Society  of  extreme  importance  that 
some  substantial  effort  should  be  made  for  the  reform 
of  existing  drunkards  or  the  permanent  control 
of  the  irreformable. 

"  Scientific  warrant  for  the  foregoing  propositions  is 
now  to  be  found  in  no  small  abundance.  Reference 
may  be  made,  for  instance,  to  the  chapter  on  "  Alcohol- 
ism and  Human  Degeneration,"  in  Dr.  W.  C.  Sulli- 
van's recent  work  Alcoholism  (Nisbet,  1906).  Dr. 
Sullivan  quotes  the  results  of  more  than  a  dozen  ob- 
servers in  this  and  other  countries,  and  special  atten- 
tion may  be  drawn  to  his  own  well-known  study 
of  the  history  of  600  children  born  of  120  drunken 
mothers.  The  works  of  Prof.  Forel  of  Zurich  are 


a8o      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

widely  known  in  this  connection,  notably  Die  Sexuel 
Frage,  and  The  Hygiene  of  Nerves  and  Mind  (Trans- 
lation, Murray,  1907).  Parental  alcoholism  as  a 
true  cause  of  epilepsy  in  the  offspring  is  now  gener- 
ally recognized.  For  numerous  and  detailed  proofs 
from  many  sources  reference  may  be  made  to  page 
210  of  the  last  work  named. 

"  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  go  over  the  ground 
which  has  doubtless  been  covered  by  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  Care  and  Control  of  the  Feeble-minded. 

"  The  existing  laws  comply  to  only  a  very  small  and 
almost  negligible  extent  with  the  eugenic  requirement. 
They  only  deal  with  (a)  the  very  minute  proportion 
of  inebriates  who  can  be  induced  to  voluntarily  sign 
away  their  liberty,  and  (b)  those  who  are  also  criminal 
or  all  but  hopeless  and  who  have  done  harm  already, 
either  as  individuals  or  in  becoming  parents.  The 
third  group  of  inebriates  (c)  not  included  in  (a)  or 
(b)  constitute  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
whole.  They  are  absolutely  untouched  by  the  present 
law,  and  further  powers  are  urgently  required  to  deal 
with  them. 

"  Such  legislation  would  be  by  no  means  without 
precedent,  and  may  avail  itself  of  the  experience  of 
several  of  our  own  colonies  and  various  foreign  coun- 
tries. Such  methods  as  compulsory  control  on  peti- 
tion, guardianship  and  so  forth  are  in  employment,  for 
instance,  in  the  Australian  commonwealth  and  New 
Zealand,  California,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  va- 
rious cantons  in  Switzerland,  Nova  Scotia,  etc. 

"  To  sum  up,  the  Society  advocates  the  retention  of 
the  present  law  so  far  as  classes  (a)  and  (b)  are  con- 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      281 

cerned,  but  would  most  strongly  urge  the  addition 
of  powers  to  deal  with  that  great  majority  of  inebri- 
ates whom  the  present  law  does  not  touch." 

THE  FRIENDS  OF  ALCOHOL. —  Those  who  defend  the 
alcoholic  poisoning  of  the  race  may  be  easily  classified. 
Some  few  honestly  stand  for  liberty.  Like  Arch- 
bishop Magee,  they  would  rather  see  England  free  than 
England  sober,  not  asking  in  what  sense  England 
drunken  could  be  called  free.  Some  are  merely  irri- 
tated by  the  temperance  fanatic.  Many  fear  that  their 
personal  comfort  may  be  interfered  with.  But  prob- 
ably the  overwhelming  majority  are  concerned  with 
their  pockets.  They  live  by  this  cannibal  trade;  by 
selling  death  and  the  slaughter  of  babies,  feeble-mind- 
edness  and  insanity,  consumption  and  worse  diseases, 
crime  and  pauperism,  degradation  of  body  and  mind 
in  a  thousand  forms,  to  the  present  generation  and 
therefore  to  the  future,  the  unconsulted  party  to  the 
bargain.  Their  motto  is  "  your  money  and  your  life." 
So  powerful  are  they  that  most  of  them  are  frank. 
They  form  associations  for  their  defense,  and  hold 
mass  meetings  at  which  they  condemn  any  temperance 
measure  that  is  before  the  country,  "  whilst  ready  to 
welcome  any  real  temperance  reform."  They  demand 
adequate  compensation:  though,  if  they  disgorged 
every  farthing  they  possess,  and  devoted  themselves 
body  and  soul  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  to  the  human 
cause,  they  could  never  compensate  us  who  are  alive, 
let  alone  the  dead  or  the  unborn,  for  the  human  ruin 
on  which  they  build  their  success.  They  build  their 
palaces  before  our  eyes;  but  where  most  see  only  fine 


282     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

stone,  the  student  of  infant  mortality,  the  lover  of  chil- 
dren, he  who  works  and  looks  for  the  life  of  this  world 
to  come,  sees  the  bodies  of  the  children  of  men  and  is 
tempted  to  recall  the  curse  of  Joshua,  "  He  shall  lay 
the  foundation  thereof  in  his  first  born,  and  in  his 
youngest  son  shall  he  set  up  the  gates  of  it." 

ALCOHOLIC  IMPERIALISM. —  At  least  let  the  alco- 
holic party  refrain  from  calling  themselves  Imperial- 
ists. Amongst  them,  for  instance,  is  the  "  Imperial 
bard,"  the  "  poet  of  empire,"  he  who  has  appealed  to 
the  "  god  of  our  fathers,"  and  who  warns  us  lest  it 
shall  be  said  that  "  all  our  pomp  of  yesterday  is  one 
with  Nineveh  and  Tyre  " :  and  appeals  to  deity  — 

"Judge  of  the  Nations,  spare  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget !  " 

This  prophet  of  what  some  may  think  a  blasphemous 
Imperialism  gives  his  name  to  the  association  which 
frankly  in  this  matter  of  alcohol  stands  for  gold  as 
against  life.  We  are  to  beware  lest  "  drunk  with  sight 
of  power "  we  boast  as  do  the  "  lesser  breeds  "  to 
whom  the  "  awful  Hand  "  of  God  has  not  granted 
dominion :  nor  are  we  to  put  our  trust  in  reeking  tube 
and  iron  shard.  We  may  freely  call  ourselves  Im- 
perialists, however,  even  though  we  should  be  num- 
bered amongst  those  whom  Ruskin,  himself  the  son  of 
a  wine  merchant,  called  the  "  vendors  of  death."  One 
wonders  whether  the  "  Lord  God  "  exists  that  he  can 
withhold  his  "  awful  Hand  "  at  such  a  spectacle  as  this. 
If  some  amongst  us  are  to  win  gold  by  the  sale  of  this 
racial  poison,  and  if  it  must  be  so,  let  them  at  least  be 
consistent,  and  label  themselves  the  very  littlest  of  little 


THE  RACIAL  POISONS:  ALCOHOL      283 

Englanders,  which  they  are.  An  alcoholic  Imperial- 
ism is  of  the  kind  which  no  Empire  can  long  survive. 

Those  of  us  whom  such  things  as  these  make  sick 
and  who  yet,  with  true  poets  like  Wordsworth,  are 
proud  of  "  the  tongue  that  Shakespeare  spake/'  and 
who  with  him  declare: 

"  It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  that  the  flood 
Of  British  freedom,  which  to  the  open  sea 
Of  the  world's  praise,  from  dark  antiquity 
Hath  flowed,     .     .     . 

That  this  most  famous  stream,  in  bogs  and  sands 
Shall  perish;  and  to  evil  and  to 'good 
Be  lost  forever  " — 

those  of  us  who  know  that  the  foundations  of  any  Em- 
pire are  living  men  and  women,  and  that,  to  quote  Mr. 
Kipling,  "  when  breeds  are  in  the  making  everything  is 
worth  while,"  may  wonder  what  process  has  been  afoot 
that  in  three  generations  English  poetry  should  pass 
from  the  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  to  "  Duke's  son,  cook's 
son,"  etc. ;  and  may  even  at  times,  especially  those  of 
us  who  know  what  alcohol  costs  in  life,  feel  a  momen- 
tary recession  of  our  faith  that  Great  Britain  need  not 
be  writing  the  last  page  of  her  great  history.  Mean- 
while, we  read  the  controversy  in  Parliament  and  the 
press  concerning  alcohol.  We  see  the  cannibal  cause 
of  beer  and  spirits,  which  makes  many  widows  and 
orphans  every  day,1  represented,  with  an  effrontery  to 

1  A  careful  and  detailed  inquiry  by  the  present  writer,  pub- 
lished in  the  Westminster  Gazette  (Nov.  21,  1008),  Daily  Chron- 
icle, and  Manchester  Guardian,  and  hitherto  unchallenged, 
showed  that,  on  the  most  moderate  reckoning,  alcohol  makes 
124  widows  and  orphans  in  England  and  Wales  every  day, 
or  more  than  45,000  per  annum. 


284    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

which  no  parallel  can  ever  be  imagined,  as  the  cause  of 
widows  and  children,  and  we  recall  the  lines  which 
Wordsworth  wrote  rather  more  than  a  century  ago  :— 

"How  piteous,  then,  that  there  should  be  such  dearth 
Of  knowledge;  that  whole  myriads  should  unite 
To  work  against  themselves  such  fell  despite; 
Should  come  in  frenzy  and  in  drunken  mirth, 
Impatient  to  put  out  the  only  light 
Of  liberty  that  yet  remains  on  earth!" 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  RACIAL  POISONS  :  LEAD,   NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS 

THE  term  racial  poisons  teaches  us  to  distinguish, 
amongst  substances  known  to  be  poisonous  to  the  in- 
dividual, those  which  injure  the  germ-plasm:  and 
amongst  substances  poisonous  to  the  expectant  mother 
herself,  we  must  distinguish  those  which  may  also 
poison  her  unborn  child.  Alcohol  is  pre-eminently  the 
racial  poison,  thus  defined,  and  I  plead  for  its  recogni- 
tion as  primarily  a  racial  poison,  this  being  immeasur- 
ably the  most  important  aspect  of  the  whole  alcohol 
question.  Readers  of  Professor  Forel  will  not  lightly 
question  this  assertion. 

The  total  number  of  racial  poisons  is,  of  course,  very 
large.  Amongst  them  must  theoretically  be  included 
all  abortifacient  drugs.  There  are  also  various  poi- 
sons of  disease  to  be  included  in  this  category.  Later 
pages  must  be  devoted  to  what  is  by  far  the  most 
important  of  these.  But  we  may  observe  in  passing 
that  such  a  disease  as  rheumatic  fever  or  acute  rheuma- 
tism has  especial  significance  for  the  student  of  race- 
culture  since,  as  he  knows,  its  poisons  circulating  in 
the  blood  of  an  expectant  mother  may  not  only  injure 
her  own  heart  for  life  but  may  pass  through  the  pla- 
centa and  deform  the  valves  of  the  child's  heart  with 
the  subsequent  result  loosely  described  as  "  congenital 

285 


286      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

heart  disease."  The  conditions  giving  rise  to  rheu- 
matic fever,  then,  are  conditions  from  which  the  ex- 
pectant mother,  even  more  than  the  ordinary  individ- 
ual, is  entitled  to  be  protected.  But  this  is  of  minor 
importance.  We  may  here  refer,  however,  to  one  or 
two  striking  cases,  especially  since  they  bear  in  some 
degree  upon  social  and  individual  duty. 

THE  RACIAL  INFLUENCE  OF  LEAD. —  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  necessary  to  draw  attention  to  a  really  no- 
table racial  poison,  viz.,  lead. 

Says  Sir  Thomas  Oliver,1  "  Lead  destroys  the  re- 
productive powers  of  both  men  and  women,  but  its 
special  influence  upon  women  during  pregnancy  is  the 
cause  of  a  great  destruction  of  human  life."  It  may 
be  said  that  in  a  sense  the  production  of  miscarriages 
and  still-births,  and  also  of  infant  mortality  by  lead, 
does  not  concern  the  student  of  race-culture.  Never- 
theless some  of  these  children  survive.  Says  Sir 
Thomas  Oliver :  "  I  have  seen  both  cretinism  and  im- 
becility in  infants  in  whom,  as  there  could  have  been 
no  possible  influence  of  alcohol,  and  presumably  none 
of  syphilis,  the  occupation  of  one  or  other  parent  as  a 
lead  worker  must  have  determined  the  imperfectly  de- 
veloped nervous  system  of  the  child."  Later  he  says 
(page  202)  :  "  Salpetriere  and  Bicetre  are  large  hos- 
pitals in  Paris  set  aside  for  the  reception  and  treatment 
of  nervous  diseases.  The  experience  of  the  physi- 
cians of  these  institutions  is  unrivaled.  One  of  the 
physicians,  M.  Roques,  speaking  of  the  degenerates 
found  in  these  hospitals,  says  that  slowly  induced  lead 

1  Diseases  of  Occupation  by  Sir  Thomas  Oliver.     (The  New 
Library  of  Medicine,  1908.) 


LEAD,  NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS          287 

poisoning  on  the  part  of  both  parents  or  in  one  or  other 
of  them  is  not  only  a  cause  of  repeated  abortions,  high 
percentage  of  still-birth  and  high  death-rate  of  infants, 
but  is  the  cause  of  convulsions,  imbecility,  and  idiocy 
in  many  of  the  children  who  survive  the  first  year  of 
existence.  Of  nineteen  children  born  to  parents  who 
were  lead  workers,  Rennert  found  that  one  child  was 
still-born  and  that  seventeen  were  macrocephalic.  In 
his  studies  upon  hereditary  degeneration  and  idiocy, 
Bourneville  places  house-painters  in  the  unenviable 
first  rank  of  the  occupations  followed  by  parents  of 
mentally  weak  children.  Out  of  eighty-seven  cases 
relating  to  unhealthy  trades,  fifty-one  were  connected 
with  white  lead  in  some  form  or  another,  while  syphilis 
was  only  responsible  for  nineteen." 

This  racial  influence  of  lead  is  by  no  means  gener- 
ally recognized  —  even  by  Royal  Commissioners.  Its 
parallelism  with  the  case  of  alcohol  is  striking.  We 
may  note,  for  instance,  that  paternal  lead-poisoning, 
like  paternal  alcoholism,  can  cause  degeneration  in  the 
offspring,  if  not  indeed  death  before  or  shortly  after 
birth.  To  quote  Oliver  again :  "  taking  seven  healthy 
women  who  were  married  to  lead  workers,  and  in 
whom  there  was  a  total  of  thirty-two  pregnancies 
Lewin  tells  us  that  the  results  were  as  follows :  eleven 
miscarriages,  one  still-birth,  eight  children  died  within 
the  first  year  after  birth,  four  in  the  second  year,  five 
in  the  third,  and  one  subsequent  to  this,  leaving  only 
two  children  out  of  thirty-two  pregnancies,  as  likely  to 
live  to  manhood.  In  cases  where  women  have  a  series 
of  miscarriages  so  long  as  their  husbands  worked  in 
lead,  a  change  of  industrial  occupation  on  the  part  of 


288      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

the  husband  restores  to  the  wives  normal  child-bear- 
ing powers."  According  to  the  statistical  inquiry  of 
Rennert,  the  malign  influence  of  lead  is  exerted  upon 
the  next  generation,  ninety-four  times  out  of  one  hun- 
dred when  both  parents  have  been  working  in  lead, 
ninety-two  times  when  the  mother  alone  is  affected,  and 
sixty-three  times  when  it  is  the  father  alone  who  has 
worked  in  lead.  Here,  then,  as  in  the  case  of  alcohol, 
the  racial  poison  may  act  either  through  the  father  or 
through  the  mother,  but  especially  through  the  mother. 
The  importance  of  the  demonstration  as  regards  the 
father  in  the  case  of  both  poisons  is  that  it  means  a 
poisoning  of  the  paternal  germ-cell.  The  facts  may  be 
commended  to  those  extremists,  so  much  more  Weis- 
mannian  than  Weismann,  who  regard  the  germ-cells 
as  existing  in  a  universe  of  their  own,  wholly  unrelated 
to  the  rest  of  existence. 

Another  extremely  interesting  parallel  between  these 
two  racial  poisons  may  be  noted.  It  is  found,  accord- 
ing to  Professor  Oliver,  that  "  While  following  a 
healthy  occupation  these  women,  after  having  fre- 
quently miscarried  when  working  in  lead  factories, 
would  have  two  or  three  living  healthy  children,  but 
circumstances  necessitating  the  return  of  these  women 
to  town,  and  resumption  of  work  in  the  lead  factory, 
they  in  each  successive  pregnancy  again  miscarried." 
He  then  quotes  the  following  most  remarkable  case :  — 
"  Mrs.  K.,  aged  thirty-four,  had  four  children  before 
going  into  the  factory  and  two  children  after.  She 
then  had  six  miscarriages  in  succession,  when  she  came 
under  my  care  in  the  Royal  Infirmary,  having  become 
the  victim  of  plumbism  and  having  lost  the  power  in 


LEAD,  NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS  289 

her  arms  and  legs.  She  made  a  slow  but  good  re- 
covery and  did  not  return  to  the  lead  works.  In  her 
next  pregnancy  she  went  to  full  term  and  gave  birth  to 
a  living  child." 

We  see  here  that,  as  is  also  true  in  the  case  of  alco- 
holism, the  germinal  tissue  itself  may  escape  or  at  any 
rate  may  recover  from  the  effects  of  chronic  poisoning 
of  the  individual  who  is  its  host.  The  race  is  more  re- 
sistant than  the  individual.  If,  however,  the  poison- 
ing continues  whilst  a  new  individual  is  being  formed 
—  that  is  to  say,  during  pregnancy  —  that  new  indi- 
vidual succumbs,  and  indeed  is  far  more  gravely  af- 
fected than  its  mother.  Such  a  pregnant  woman  pre- 
sents three  distinct  living  objects  for  our  study.  Her 
own  body  is  one:  and  this  is  already  developed.  It 
has  some  measure  of  resistance  to  the  poison  but  is 
gravely  affected.  The  embryo  is  the  second;  it  is  de- 
veloping and  because  developing  is  susceptible.  It  is 
usually  killed  before  birth.  The  third  is  the  germ- 
plasm  or  the  race,  and  this,  as  we  have  seen,  may  with- 
stand the  poison  so  well  that  when  the  poisoning  is 
discontinued  healthy  children  may  be  produced  from 
it.  Undoubtedly  the  case  is  the  same  as  regards  al- 
cohol. The  race  or  germ-plasm  is  most  resistant,  the 
developing  individual  is  least  resistant,  and  the  adult 
individual  —  that  is  to  say,  the  mother  —  occupies  an 
intermediate  position  in  this  respect. 

This  parallelism,  which  has  escaped  previous  ob- 
servers, may  be  pointed  out  and  its  remarkable  interest 
and  significance  suggested  as  a  definite  advance  upon 
the  absurd  view  that  the  germ-plasm  is  incapable  of 
being  poisoned.  On  the  contrary,  we  know  that  many 


290     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

poisons  will  kill  it  outright  so  that  sterility  results.  But 
its  high  degree  of  resistance  is  a  fact  of  great  interest. 
Doubtless  Dr.  Archdall  Reid's  acute  explanation  of  it 
is  correct:  namely,  that  natural  selection  would  tend 
to  evolve  a  resistless  germ-plasm.  Dr.  Reid  will,  I 
think,  be  interested  to  notice  in  these  remarkable  ob- 
servations on  lead-poisoning  a  conspicuous  illustration 
of  this  resistance. 

Our  business  here,  however,  is  with  the  practical  is- 
sue. This  fortunately  is  plain,  nor  are  there  the  same 
difficulties  of  vested  interests  which  arise  in  the  case  of 
alcohol.  Lead-poisoning  must  be  ended  in  the  inter- 
ests of  race-culture  and  the  essential  wealth  of  the  na- 
tion or,  if  it  is  to  be  continued,  it  must  at  least  have  its 
clutches  kept  clear  of  parenthood. 

THE  POSSIBLE  RACIAL  INFLUENCE  OF  NARCOTICS. — ' 

Alcohol  is  of  course  a  narcotic  poison,  or  more  pre- 
cisely still,  a  narcotic-irritant  poison,  but  here  we  may 
briefly  refer  to  the  possible  racial  influence  of  certain 
other  poisons.  There  is,  for  instance,  the  case,  noted 
on  p.  245,  of  the  disastrous  racial  consequences  of  the 
cocaine  habit.  The  matter  demands  only  a  paragraph, 
since  for  the  present,  at  least,  it  is  of  small  general  im- 
portance, and  since  we  must  beware  of  going  beyond 
the  facts;  but  when  once  the  idea  of  race-culture  has 
reached  the  popular  and  professional  mind  —  the  latter 
at  present  frequently  feeding  the  pregnant  woman 
with  alcohol,  as  we  all  know  —  the  whole  question  of 
narcomania  will  have  to  be  looked  at  from  this  aspect, 
and  the  measure  of  danger  in  particular  cases  will  then 
be  ascertained.  It  is  probably  safe  to  assume,  how- 
ever, that,  on  the  whole,  alcohol  will  be  found  to  stand 


LEAD,  NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS  291 

somewhat  apart  from  other  narcotics,  and  for  the  rea- 
son that  it  is  not  a  pure  narcotic  but  also  an  irritant. 
Thus,  to  take  the  case  of  opium,  it  will  probably  be 
very  difficult  and,  one  may  hope,  impossible  to  show 
that,  shall  we  say,  opium  smoking  or  eating  has  an 
injurious  racial  influence  where  it  is  practiced.  Here 
we  have  a  narcotic  which  is  not  an  irritant.  The  in- 
dividual may  recover  perfectly  from  its  abuse,  as  he 
may  often  fail  to  recover  from  the  abuse  of  alcohol, 
since  this  poison  leaves  permanent  changes  in  the 
brain,  and  elsewhere,  dependent  upon  the  fact  that  it 
is  not  merely  a  narcotic  but  also  a  local  irritant.  The 
action  of  a  pure  narcotic  on  the  germ-plasm  as  com- 
pared with  the  action  of  a  narcotic  which  is  also  an 
irritant  may  afford  a  parallel.  The  abuse  of  opium 
by  an  expectant  mother  (see  p.  245)  is  not  of  the 
same  order :  it  means  simply  dosing  a  very  small  baby 
with  opium. 

TOBACCO  AND  THE  RACE. —  The  poisonous  com- 
pounds absorbed  from  tobacco  smoke  are  of  interest  in 
this  connection.  The  question  as  to  the  proportion  of 
nicotine  included  amongst  them  is  immaterial  here. 
It  suffices  to  know,  as  we  do,  that  certain  substances, 
doubtless  including  some  proportion  of  nicotine,  rap- 
idly absorbed  into  the  blood  by  the  smoker,  are  poisons 
to  the  individual  body.  The  familiar  fact  of  the  ac- 
quirement of  immunity  affects  in  no  degree  the  state- 
ment as  to  the  toxic  character  of  these  substances. 

No  one  but  the  fanatic  would  venture  to  say  that 
any  racial  degeneration  can  be  traced  to  tobacco- 
smoking.  It  would  be  hard  to  prove  the  existence  of 
any  injury  thus  inflicted  upon  the  children  of  the  father 


292      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

who  is  a  smoker,  though  the  question  of  the  acquire- 
ment of  immunity  is  not  without  relevance  here.  The 
immunizing  substances  or  anti-toxins  which  are  doubt- 
less produced  in  the  smoker's  blood  may  protect  the 
germ-plasm  which  he  bears  as  well  as  his  own  body. 

But  in  the  case  of  the  expectant  mother  there  is  more 
warrant  for  offering  an  opinion  even  in  the  absence 
hitherto  of  definite  evidence.  Apart  from  any  opinion 
as  to  the  propriety  of  smoking  by  women  in  general, 
there  is  a  definite  issue  in  the  case  of  the  expectant 
mother.  A  very  young  child  is  now  being  exposed  to 
the  poisons  of  tobacco  smoke,  and  if  we  are  right  in 
passing  laws  to  prevent  this  poisoning  in  the  case  of 
the  urchin  of  eight  years  (who  is  really,  of  course, 
eight  years  and  nine  months  old)  what  shall  we  say  re- 
garding the  unborn  child  who  is  only  eight  months 
old?  I  have  observed  that  the  expectant  mother  may 
have  her  liking  for  tobacco  replaced  by  violent  dislike 
during  pregnancy. 

THE  POISON  OF  SYPHILIS. —  Brief  mention  must 
here  be  made  of  syphilis  as  a  racial  poison.  Sooner  or 
later  the  eugenic  campaign  must  and  will  face  this 
question,  about  which  a  murderous  silence  is  now 
maintained.  No  other  disease  can  rival  syphilis  in  its 
hideous  influence  upon  parenthood  and  the  future. 
But  it  is  no  crime  for  a  man  to  marry,  infect  his  in- 
nocent bride  and  their  children:  no  crime  against  the 
laws  of  our  little  lawgivers,  but  a  heinous  outrage 
against  Nature's  decrees.  When,  at  last,  our  laws  are 
based  on  Nature's  laws,  criminal  marriages  of  this 
kind  may  be  put  an  end  to. 

The  lay  reader  should  acquaint  himself  with  the  play 


LEAD,  NARCOTICS,  SYPHILIS  293 

of  Brieux,  Les  Avaries.  The  student  may  be  referred 
to  Forel's  Sexual  Question,  Dr.  C.  F.  Marshall's  Syphi- 
lology  and  Venereal  Diseases,  and  his  article,  "  Alcohol 
and  Syphilis  "  in  the  British  Journal  of  Inebriety,  Jan- 
uary, 1908. 

This  chapter  and  the  last  do  not  profess  to  do  more 
than  indicate  the  field  of  eugenics  which  the  term  ra- 
cial poisons  suggests.     Our  business  in  the  present  vol- 
ume is,  if  possible,  to  see  eugenics  whole:  to  treat  of 
this  new  science  adequately  is  not  for  one  author  or 
one  generation.     It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  the 
medical  profession  will  speedily  take  up  this  question 
of  the  racial  poisons.     Already  the  profession  is  be- 
ginning to  become  the  great  instrument  of  individual 
hygiene:  and  every  year  will  enhance  the  importance 
of  this  work  as  compared  with  the  cure  of  disease. 
Now  negative  engenics  is  substantially  racial  hygiene: 
and  the  next  great  epoch  in  the  evolution  of  medicine 
and  the  medical  profession  will  be  the  enrolment  of  its 
knowledge  and  influence  in  the  cause  of  racial  hy- 
giene.    May  this  book  do  a  little  to  hasten  that  day. 
The  two  next  chapters  are  destined  to  introduce  that 
aspect  of  our  subject  which  may  be  called  National 
Eugenics,  and  especially  with  reference  to  decadence. 
Here  is  a  matter  which  appeals  to  minds  of  type  and 
training  often  very  different  from  the  typical  medical 
mind.     But  it  is  part  of  one's  purpose  to  show,  if  pos- 
sible, that  the  historian  must  become  a  eugenist,  just  as 
the  physician  must,  for  eugenics  needs  and  claims  the 
work  and  help  of  both. 


CHAPTER  XV 

NATIONAL    EUGENICS  I    RACE-CULTURE    AND    HISTORY  1 

THE  reader  will  not  expect  to  be  insulted  here  with 
any  discussion  of  the  garbage  and  gossip,  records  of 
scoundrels,  courts  and  courtesans,  battles,  murder  and 
theft,  which  we  were  taught  at  school,  under  the  great 
name  of  history.2  If  history  be,  as  nearly  all  histo- 
rians have  conceived  it,  and  as  Gibbon  defined  it,  "  little 
more  than  the  register  of  the  crimes,  follies,  and  mis- 
fortunes of  mankind,"  it  is  an  empty  and  contemptible 

1  This  chapter  contains  the  substance  of  the  author's  Friday 
evening    discourse,    entitled    "Biology    and    History,"    delivered 
before  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Feb- 
ruary  14,   1908.    The  substance  of  two  lectures   to  the   Royal 
Institution,   entitled  "  Biology  and  Progress,"  and  delivered  in 
February,  1907,  is  also  included  in  the  present  volume. 

2  It  is  thus   everywhere   that   foolish   Rumor  babbles   not  of 
what   was   done,   but   of   what  was   misdone   or   undone;   and 
foolish    History    (ever,    more   or   less,    the    written    epitomized 
synopsis  of  Rumor)  knows  so  little  that  were  not  as  well  un- 
known.   Attila  invasions,  Walter-the-Penniless  Crusades,  Sicilian 
Vespers,  Thirty- Years'  Wars:  mere  sin  and  misery;  not  work, 
but  hindrance   of   work!    For  the   Earth,   all   this   while,   was 
yearly  green  and  yellow  with  her  kind  harvests;  the  hand  of 
the  craftsman,   the   mind   of   the   thinker   rested   not:    and    so, 
after  all,  and  in  spite  of  all,  we  have  this  so  glorious  high- 
domed  blossoming  World ;  concerning  which,  poor  History  may 
well  ask,  with  wonder,  Whence  it  came?     She  knows  so  little 
of  it,  knows  so  much  of  what  obstructed  it,  what  would  have 
rendered  it  impossible.     Such,  nevertheless,  by  necessity  or  fool- 
ish  choice,   is   her   rule   and    practice;    whereby   that   paradox, 
4  Happy  the  people   whose   annals   are  vacant/  is  not  without 
its  true  side." —  CARLYLE,  French  Revolution. 

"  In  a  little  while  it  would  come  to  be  felt  that  the  true  history 
of  a  nation  was  indeed  not  of  its  wars  but  of  its  households." — 
RUSKIN,  Time  and  Tide. 

294 


RAGE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          295 

study,  save  for  the  social  pathologist.  But  if  history 
without  by  any  means  ignoring  great  men  or  underrat- 
ing their  influence,  is,  or  should  be,  the  record  of  the 
past  life  of  mankind,  of  progress  and  decadence,  the 
rise  and  fall  of  Empires  and  civilizations,  and  their 
mutual  reactions ;  if  it  be  the  record  of  the  intermittent 
ascent  of  man,  "  sagging  but  pertinacious  " ;  if  this 
record  be  subject  to  the  law  of  causation,  and  therefore 
susceptible,  in  theory,  at  least,  of  explanation  as  well 
as  description;  if  its  factors  are  at  work  to-day  and 
will  shape  the  destiny  of  all  the  to-morrows;  if  it  be 
neither  phantasmagoria  nor  panorama  nor  pageant  nor 
procession  but  process,  in  short,  an  organic  drama, — 
then,  indeed,  it  is  more  than  worthy  of  all  the  study 
and  thought  of  all  who  ever  study  or  ever  think.  Es- 
pecially must  it  appeal  to  us,  who  boast  a  tradition 
greater  than  the  world  has  ever  yet  seen,  and  kinship 
with  men  who  represent  the  utmost  of  which  the  hu- 
man spirit  has  yet  shown  itself  capable, —  to  us  who 
speak  the  tongue  that  Shakespeare  spake,  but  to  whom 
the  names  of  all  our  Imperial  predecessors,  from  Baby- 
lon to  Spain,  serve  as  a  perpetual  memento  mori. 
Our  special  question  here  is  whether  there  are  inherent 
and  necessary  reasons  why  our  predecessors'  fate  must 
sooner  or  later  be  ours.  Must  races  die?  —  or,  if  we 
are  sceptical  about  races  and  more  especially  about  the 
so-called  Anglo-Saxon  race,  must  civilizations,  states, 
or  nations  die  ?  What  comment  does  modern  biology, 
or  the  theory  of  organic  evolution,  make  upon  the  fa- 
miliar words  of  Byron  in  his  address  to  the  ocean : — 

"Thy  shores  are  empires,  changed  in  all  save  thee  — 
Assyria,  Greece,  Rome,  Carthage,  what  are  they? 


296     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Thy  waters  wasted  them  while  they  were  free 
And  many  a  tyrant  since :  their  shores  obey 
The  stranger,  slave,  or  savage." 

And  these,  a  few  pages  earlier  in  the  same  poem :  — 

"  There  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales ; 
'Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past, 
First  Freedom  and  then  Glory  —  when  that  fails, 
Wealth,  vice,  corruption  —  barbarism  at  last. 
And  History,  with  all  her  volumes  vast, 
Hath  but  one  page"     .     .     . 

Nations,  races,  civilizations  rise,  we  shall  all  agree, 
because  to  inherent  virtue  of  breed  they  add  sound 
customs  and  laws,  acquirements  of  discipline  and 
knowledge.  But,  these  acquirements  made,  power  es- 
tablished, and  crescent  from  year  to  year  —  why  do 
they  then  fall?  If  they  can  make  a  place  for  them- 
selves, how  much  easier  should  it  not  be  to  maintain  it  ? 

Two  explanations,  each  falsely  asserting  itself  to  be 
rooted  in  biological  fact,  have  long  been  cited  and  are 
still  cited  in  order  to  account  for  these  supreme  trage- 
dies of  history. 

THE  FALLACY  OF  RACIAL  SENILITY. —  The  first  may 
claim  Plato  and  Aristotle  as  its  founders,  and  consists 
of  an  argument  from  analogy.  Races  may  be  con- 
ceived in  similar  terms  to  individuals.  There  are 
many  resemblances  between  a  society  —  a  "  social  or- 
ganism," to  use  Herbert  Spencer's  phrase  —  and  an 
individual  organism.  Just  then,  as  the  individual  is 
mortal,  so  is  the  race.  Each  has  its  birth,  its  period  of 
youth  and  growth,  its  maturity,  and,  finally,  its  deca- 
dence, senility  and  death.  So  runs  the  common  argu- 
ment. 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          297 

We  must  reply,  however,  that  biology,  so  far  from 
confirming  it,  declares  as  the  capital  fact  which  con- 
trasts the  individual  and  the  race  that,  whilst  the  indi- 
vidual is  doomed  to  die  from  inherent  causes,  the  race 
is  naturally  immortal.  The  tendency  of  life  is  not  to 
die  but  to  live.  If  individuals  die,  that  is  doubtless 
because,  as  I  believe,  more  life  and  fuller  is  thus  at- 
tained than  if  life  bodied  itself  in  immortal  forms :  but 
the  germ-plasm  is  immortal;  it  has  no  inherent  ten- 
dency either  to  degenerate  or  to  die.  Species  exist 
and  flourish  now  which  are  millions  of  years  older  than 
mankind.  "  The  individual  withers,  the  race  is  more 
and  more." 

It  may  be  added  that,  in  historical  instances,  civiliza- 
tions have,  on  the  one  hand,  persisted,  and,  on  the 
other,  fallen,  despite  change,  and  even  substitution,  in 
the  races  which  created  them :  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  most  conspicuously  persistent  of  all  races  in  the 
historic  epoch,  the  Jews,  have  survived  one  Empire 
after  another  of  their  oppressors,  but  have  never  had 
an  Empire  of  their  own.  Thus,  so  far  as  the  historian 
is  concerned,  it  is  not  races  at  all  that  die,  but  civiliza- 
tions and  Empires.  Plato's  argument  from  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  race  is  therefore  irrelevant,  as  well  as  un- 
true. The  fatalistic  conception  to  which  it  tempts  us, 
saying  that  races  must  die,  just  as  individuals  must, 
and  that  therefore  it  is  idle  to  repine  or  oppose,  is  ut- 
terly unwarrantable  and  extremely  unhealthy.  To 
take  our  own  case,  despite  the  talk  about  our  own  ra- 
cial decadence,  nearly  all  our  babies  still  come  into  the 
world  fit  and  strong  and  healthy  —  the  racial  poisons 
apart.  We  kill  them  in  scores  of  thousands  every 


298     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

year,  but  this  infant  mortality  is  not  a  sign  that  the  race 
is  dying,  but  a  sign  that  even  the  most  splendid  living 
material  can  be  killed  or  damaged  if  you  try  hard 
enough.  The  babies  do  not  die  because  races  are  mor- 
tal, but  because  individuals  are  and  we  kill  them.  The 
babies  drink  poison,  eat  poison,  and  breathe  poison, 
and  in  due  course  die.  The  theory  of  racial  senility, 
inapplicable  everywhere  because  untrue,  is  most  of  all 
inapplicable  here.  If  a  race  became  sterile,  Plato  and 
Aristotle  would  be  right.  There  is  no  such  instance  in 
history,  apart  from  well-defined  external,  not  inherent, 
causes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Tasmanians.  Dismissing 
this  analogy,  we  may  also  dismiss,  as  based  upon  noth- 
ing better,  the  idea  that  the  great  tragedies  of  history 
were  necessary  events  at  all.  We  must  look  elsewhere 
than  amongst  the  inherent  and  necessary  factors  of 
racial  life  for  the  causes  which  determine  these  trage- 
dies; and  we  shall  be  entitled  to  assume  as  conceivable 
the  proposition  that,  notwithstanding  the  consistent 
fall  of  all  our  predecessors,  the  causes  are  not  in- 
evitable, but,  being  external  and  environmental,  may 
possibly  be  controlled :  men  being  not  only  creature  but 
creator  also. 

THE  LAMARCKIAN  EXPLANATION  OF  DECADENCE. — 

The  second  of  the  two  false  interpretations  of  history 
in  terms  of  biology  is  still,  and  always  has  been,  widely 
credited.  When  historians  have  paid  any  attention  to 
the  breed  of  a  people  as  determining  its  destiny,  they 
have  invariably  added  to  the  fallacy  of  racial  senility 
this  no  less  fecund  error.  It  is  that,  in  consequence  of 
success,  a  people  become  idle,  thoughtless,  unenterpris- 
ing, luxurious,  and  that  these  acquired  characters  are 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          299 

transmitted  to  succeeding  generations  so  that,  finally, 
there  is  produced  a  degenerate  people  unable  to  bear 
the  burden  of  Empire  —  and  then  the  crash  comes. 
The  historian  usually  introduces  the  idea  already  dis- 
missed by  saying  that  a  "  young  and  vigorous  race  " 
invaded  the  Imperial  territories  —  and  so  forth.  The 
terms  "  young  "  and  "  old,"  applied  to  human  races, 
usually  mean  nothing  at  all. 

The  reader  will  recognize,  of  course,  in  this  doctrine 
of  the  transmission  to  children  of  characters  acquired 
by  their  parents,  the  explanation  of  organic  evolution 
advanced  by  Lamarck  rather  more  than  a  century  ago. 
It  is  employed  by  historians  for  the  explanation  of 
both  the  processes  they  record,  progress  and  retrogres- 
sion. Thus  they  suppose  that  for  many  generations  a 
race  is  disciplined,  and  so  at  last  there  is  produced  a 
race  with  discipline  in  its  very  bone ;  or  for  many  gen- 
erations a  nation  finds  it  necessary  to  make  adventure 
upon  the  sea,  and  so  at  last  there  is  produced  a  genera- 
tion of  predestined  sailors  with  blue  water  in  its  blood. 
And  in  similar  terms  moral  and  physical  retrogression 
or  degeneration  are  explained. 

Let  us  consider  the  contrast  between  the  interpreta- 
tion which  accepts  the  Lamarckian  theory  of  the  trans- 
mission of  acquired  characters  and  that  which  does 
not.  Consider  the  babies  of  a  new  generation.  Ac- 
cording to  Lamarck,  these  have  in  their  blood  and 
brain  the  consequences  of  the  habits  of  their  ancestors. 
If  these  have  been  idle  and  luxurious,  the  new  babies 
are  predestined  to  be  idle  and  luxurious  too.  This,  in 
short,  is  a  "  dying  nation/'  But,  if  acquired  charac- 
ters are  not  transmitted,  the  new  generation  is,  on  the 


300    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

whole,  not  much  better,  not  much  worse,  than  its 
predecessors  —  so  far  as  this  supposed  factor  of  change 
is  concerned.  Each  generation  makes  a  fresh  start, 
as  we  see  in  the  babies  of  our  slums  to-day.  It  does 
not  begin  where  the  last  left  off  —  whether  that  means 
beginning  at  a  higher  or  at  a  lower  level  than  that  at 
which  the  last  started :  but  it  makes  a  fresh  start  where 
the  last  did. 

Now,  in  general,  we  have  seen  that  Lamarck's  the- 
ory is  discredited.  The  view  of  Mr.  Galton  is  ac- 
cepted, that  acquired  characters  are  not  transmitted, 
either  for  good  or  for  evil.  If  there  are  no  other  fac- 
tors of  racial  degeneration  or  racial  advance,  then 
races  do  not  degenerate  or  advance,  but  make  a  fresh 
start  every  generation :  and  Empires  rise  and  fall  with- 
out any  relation  to  the  breed  of  the  Imperial  people  - 
an  incredible  proposition. 

THE  RACIAL  POISONS  AND  DECADENCE. —  Certain  ap- 
parent, though  not  real,  exceptions  exist  to  the  denial 
of  the  Lamarckian  theory  of  the  transmission  of  ac- 
quired characters.  These  exceptions  are  furnished  by 
what  I  have  called  the  racial  poisons.  Alcohol,  for  in- 
stance is  a  substance,  certainly  poisonous  in  all  but 
very  small  doses,  if  not  in  them,  which  is  carried  by  the 
blood  to  every  part  of  the  body  and  may  and  does  in- 
jure its  racial  elements.  Thus  a  true  racial  degenera- 
tion may  be  caused  by  its  means :  and  the  possibility  of 
this  is  not  to  be  ignored.  Other  poisons,  such  as  those 
of  certain  diseases,  act  similarly. 

We  must  therefore  note  in  passing  a  biological  fac- 
tor of  historical  importance,  though  hitherto  entirely 
unrecognized  by  historians,  and  that  is  disease.  Cer- 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          301 

tain  of  our  diseases,  and  especially  consumption  or 
tuberculosis,  are  at  present  making  history  by  their 
extermination  of  aboriginal  races.  Minute  living 
creatures,  which  we  call  microbes,  are  introduced  into 
the  new  and  favorable  environment  constituted  by  the 
blood  and  tissues  of  human  races  hitherto  unacquainted 
with  them:  and  the  consequences  are  known  to  all. 
But  further,  it  has  lately  been  suggested  as  highly  prob- 
able, by  Professor  Ronald  Ross,  that  the  fall  of  Greece, 
that  incalculable  disaster  for  mankind,  was  due  to  the 
invasion  not  of  human  foes  but  of  the  humble  living 
species  which  are  responsible  for  the  disease  miscalled 
malaria.  The  evidence  for  this  view  is  by  no  means 
slight,  and  the  most  recent  explanation  of  an  event  so 
abrupt  and  so  disastrous  is  in  all  likelihood  the  correct 
one.  Malaria,  like  alcohol,  produces  true  racial  de- 
generation, its  poisons  affecting  those  racial  elements 
of  which  the  individual  body,  biologically  conceived,  is 
merely  the  ephemeral  host:  recalling  the  great  line  of 
Lucretius,  "  et  quasi  cursores,  vital  lampada  tradunt" 
To  lame  the  runner  is  not  to  injure  the  torch  he  bears 
—  acquired  characters  are  not  transmitted ;  but  the  ra- 
cial poison  makes  dim  the  lamp  ere  he  passes  it  on. 

SELECTION  AND  RACIAL  CHANGE. —  But,  leaving 
poisons  out  of  the  question,  races  of  men  and  animals 
do  undergo  change,  progressive  and  retrogressive,  in 
consequence  of  the  action  of  another  factor  than  that 
advanced  by  Lamarck :  and  this  is  the  factor  of  "  nat- 
ural selection  "  so  termed  by  Charles  Darwin  in  1858, 
or  "  survival  of  the  fittest,"  to  use  Herbert  Spencer's 
phrase.  If,  of  any  generation,  individuals  of  a  certain 
kind  are  chosen  by  the  environment  for  survival  and 


302    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

parenthood,  the  character  of  the  species  will  change  ac- 
cordingly. If  what  we  call  the  best  are  chosen,  their 
goodness  will  be  transmitted  in  some  degree,  and  the 
race  will  advance :  if  what  we  call  the  worst  are  chosen, 
their  badness  will  be  transmitted  in  some  degree,  and 
the  race  will  degenerate 

THE  TWO  KINDS  OF  PROGRESS. —  Now  in  the  case 
of  all  species  other  than  man,  the  only  possible  prog- 
ress is  this  racial  or  inherent  progress,  dependent  upon 
a  choice  or  selection  of  parents,  and  comparable  in 
some  measure,  as  Darwin  showed,  with  the  change 
similarly  produced  in  the  selective  breeding  or  "  arti- 
ficial selection  "  of  the  lower  animals  by  man.  But 
in  the  case  of  man  himself,  there  is  a  wholly  different 
kind  of  progress  also  attainable,  which  is  not  inherent 
or  racial  progress  at  all,  but  yet  is  real  progress:  and 
which  has  the  most  important  relations  to  the  inherent 
or  racial  progress  that  might  be  achieved  by  the  process 
of  natural  selection,  or  the  choice  of  parents. 

It  has  been  laid  down  that  acquired  characters  are 
not  transmissible  by  heredity:  but  man  has  learnt  — 
and  it  is  well  for  him  —  to  circumvent  the  laws  of 
heredity  by  transmitting  his  spiritual  acquirements 
through  language  and  art.  Even  before  writing  there 
was  tradition,  passed  on  from  mouth  to  mouth.  As 
long  as  man  was  without  writing  he  advanced  little 
faster  than  other  creatures,  we  may  surmise :  we  know 
that  he  has  an  undistinguished  past  of  probably  at  least 
six  million  years:  but  with  speech  and  writing  came 
the  transmission  of  acquirements  in  this  special  sense; 
not  that  the  past  education  of  a  mother  will  enlarge 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         303 

her  baby's  brain,  but  that  she  can  teach  her  daughter 
what  she  has  learnt,  and  so  the  child  can  begin  where 
the  parent  left  off,  just  as  Lamarck  wrongly  imagined 
to  be  the  case  with  the  young  giraffe,  that  he  supposed 
to  profit  by  the  stretching  of  the  parental  necks.  It  is 
this  transmission  of  spiritual  acquirements  —  outside 
the  germ-plasm  and  in  defiance  of  its  laws  —  that  ex- 
plains the  amazing  advance  of  man  in  the  last  ten  or 
twenty  thousand  years  as  compared  with  the  almost 
speechless  ages  before  them. 

This  kind  of  progress  is  peculiar  to  man,1  it  is  the 
gift  of  intelligence,  and  we  may  call  it  traditional  or 
acquired  progress.  It  is  an  utterly  different  thing 
from  inherent  or  racial  progress,  an  improvement  in 
the  breed  dependent  upon  the  happy  choice  of  parents. 
And  it  is  surely  evident,  on  a  moment's  consideration, 
that  acquired  progress  is  compatible  with  inherent  de- 
cadence. To  use  Coleridge's  image,  a  dwarf  may  see 
further  than  a  giant  if  he  sits  on  the  giant's  shoulders : 
yet  he  is  a  dwarf  and  the  other  a  giant.  Any  school- 
boy now  knows  more  than  Aristotle,  and  that  is  true 
progress  of  a  kind,  but  the  schoolboy  may  well  be  a 
dwarf  compared  with  Aristotle,  and  may  belong  to  a 
race  degenerate  when  compared  with  his;  and  that  is 
inherent  or  racial  decadence  subsisting  with  acquired  or 
traditional  progress. 

Now  whilst  the  accumulation  of  knowledge  and  art 
and  power  from  age  to  age  is  real  progress,  it  evidently 

1 "  Literature,  taken  in  all  its  bearings,  forms  the  grand  line 
of  demarcation  between  the  human  and  the  animal  kingdoms." 
—  WM.  GODWIN. 


3o4      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

depends  for  its  stability  and  persistence  upon  the  qual- 
ity of  the  race.1  If  the  race  degenerates  —  through, 
say,  the  selection  of  the  worst  for  parenthood  — 
the  time  will  come  when  its  heritage  is  too  much  for  it. 
The  pearls  of  the  ancestral  art  are  now  cast  before 
swine,  and  are  trampled  on :  statues,  temples,  books  are 
destroyed  or  burnt  or  lost.  If  an  Empire  has  been 
built,  the  degenerate  race  cannot  sustain  it.  There  is 
no  wealth  but  life:  and  if  the  quality  of  the  life  fails, 
neither  battleships  nor  libraries  nor  symphonies  nor 
anything  else  will  save  a  nation.  This  we  all  know, 
though  no  one  who  observed  our  legislation  or  read 
our  Parliamentary  debates  would  suspect  that  it  had 
ever  entered  into  our  minds.  Empires  and  civiliza- 
tions, then,  have  fallen,  despite  the  strength  and  mag- 
nitude of  the  superstructure,  because  the  foundations 
decayed:  and  the  bigger  and  heavier  the  superstruc- 
ture the  less  could  it  survive  their  failure.  If  the  Fiji 
islanders  degenerate,  there  is  little  consequence :  if  the 
breed  of  Romans  degenerate,  all  their  vast  mass  of 
acquired  progress  and  power  crushes  them  into  dra- 
matic ruin.  This  image,  I  believe,  truly  expresses 
the  relation  between  the  two  wholly  distinct  kinds  of 
progress,  which  we  have  yet  to  learn  to  distinguish. 
Acquired  progress  will  not  compensate  for  racial  or 
inherent  decadence.  If  the  race  is  going  down,  it  will 
not  compensate  to  add  another  colony  to  your  Empire : 
on  the  contrary,  the  bigger  the  Empire  the  stronger 
must  be  the  race:  the  bigger  the  superstructure  the 
stronger  the  foundations.  Acquired  progress  is  real 

1  See  the  author's  paper,  "  The  Essential  Factor  of  Progress," 
published  in  the  Monthly  Review,  April,  1906. 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         305 

progress  but  it  is  always  dependent  for  its  maintenance 
upon  racial  or  inherent  progress  —  or,  at  least,  upon 
racial  maintenance. 

NOTHING  FAILS  LIKE  SUCCESS. —  I  believe,  then, 
that  civilizations  and  Empires  have  succumbed  because 
they  represented  only  acquired  or  traditional  educa- 
tional progress  and  this  availed  not  at  all  when  the 
races  that  built  them  up  began  to  degenerate.  Now  the 
only  explanation  of  racial  degeneration  yet  offered  by 
the  historians  —  apart  from  the  foolish  one  of  racial 
senility  —  is  the  Lamarckian  one  of  the  transmission 
of  habits  of  luxury  and  idleness  from  parent  to  child : 
an  explanation  which  the  modern  study  of  heredity 
empowers  us  to  repudiate.  What  theory  of  this  al- 
leged degeneration  is  there  to  offer  in  its  place:  and 
especially  what  theory  which  explains  racial  degenera- 
tion amongst  not  the  conquered  but  the  conquerors: 
amongst  the  successful,  the  Imperial,  the  cultured,  the 
leisured,  the  well-catered  for  in  all  respects,  bodily  and 
mental.  Why  is  it  that  not  enslaved  but  Imperial  peo- 
ples degenerate?  Why  is  it  that  nothing  fails  like 
success  ? 

What  I  believe  to  be  the  true  and  sufficient  answer 
has  been  given  by  no  historian :  but  the  key  to  it  is  only 
fifty  years  old.  The  reason  is  that  no  race  or  species, 
vegetable  or  animal  or  human,  can  maintain  —  much 
less  raise  —  its  organic  level  unless  its  best  be  selected 
for  parenthood.  It  is  true  of  a  race  as  of  an  individ- 
ual that  it  must  work  for  its  living  —  so  to  speak  — 
if  it  is  not  to  degenerate.  When  the  terms  are  too 
easy,  down  you  go.  The  tape-worm  has  given  up 
even  digesting  for  its  living,  and  we  know  its  degen- 


3b6     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

eracy  —  all  hooks  and  mouth.  Society  works  and 
hands  over  its  predigested  food  to  such  social  parasites 
amongst  ourselves.  You  must  struggle  or  you  will 
degenerate  —  even  if  only  with  rhyme  or  counterpoint, 
not  necessarily  for  bread.  "  Effort  is  the  law,"  as 
Ruskin  said:  whether  for  a  livelihood  or  for  enjoy- 
ment. Living  things  are  the  product  of  the  struggle 
for  existence :  we  are  thus  evolved  strugglers  by  con- 
stitution :  and  directly  we  cease  to  struggle  we  forfeit 
the  possibilities  of  our  birthright.  "  Thou,  O  God," 
said  Leonardo,  "  hast  given  all  good  things  to  man  at 
the  price  of  labor." 

The  case  is  the  same  with  races.  Directly  the  con- 
ditions become  too  easy,  selection  ceases,  and  it  is  as 
successful  to  be  incompetent  or  lazy  or  vicious  as  to  be 
worthy.  The  hard  conditions  that  kept  weeding  out 
the  unworthy  are  now  related  and  the  fine  race  they 
made  goes  back  again.  Finally  there  occurs  the  phe- 
nomenon of  reversed  selection,  when  it  is  fitter  to  be 
bad  than  good,  cowardly  than  brave  —  as  when  reli- 
gious persecution  murders  all  who  are  true  to  them- 
selves and  spares  hypocrites  and  apostates:  or  when 
healthy  children  are  killed  in  factories  whilst  feeble- 
minded children  or  deaf-mutes  are  carefully  tended 
until  maturity  and  then  sent  into  the  world  to  repro- 
duce their  maladies.  Under  reversed  selection  such 
results  are  obtained  as  a  breeder  of  race-horses  or 
plants  would  obtain  if  he  went  to  work  on  similar  lines: 
the  race  degenerates  rapidly:  and  if  it  be  an  Imperial 
race  its  Empire  comes  crashing  down  about  its  ears. 
All  Empires  and  civilizations  hitherto  have  involved 
the  partial  or  complete  arrest  or  reversal  of  the  proc- 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         307 

ess  of  natural  selection:  and  the  racial  degeneration 
which  necessarily  ensued  has  been  the  cause  of  their 
invariable  doom. 

When  a  primitive  race  is  making  its  way  by  force, 
selection  is  stringent.  The  weak,  cowardly,  diseased, 
stupid  are  expunged  from  generation  to  generation. 
As  civilization  advances,  a  higher  ethical  level  is 
reached:  all  true  civilization  tending  to  abrogate  and 
ameliorate  the  struggle  for  existence.  The  diseased 
and  weakly  and  feeble-minded  are  no  longer  left  to  pay 
the  penalty  sternly  exacted  by  Nature  for  unfitness: 
they  are  allowed  to  survive  and  multiply.  A  success- 
ful race  can  apparently  afford  to  permit  this,  as  a  race 
that  is  fighting  for  its  existence  cannot.  But  in  reality 
no  race  can  afford  this  absolutely  fatal  process. 

There  is  thus  a  real  risk  involved  in  the  accumula- 
tion of  acquired,  traditional  or  educational  progress. 
Not  only  does  it  tend  to  abrogate  or  even  to  reverse 
selection,  but  it  serves  to  disguise  the  consequences  of 
this  abrogation.  If  a  subhuman  race  degenerates  the 
fact  is  evident :  but  such  a  nation  as  our  own  may  quite 
well  degenerate  whilst  the  accumulation  of  acquired 
progress,  transmitted  by  education,  almost  completely 
cloaks  the  fact  for  a  time.  We  may  be  congratulating 
ourselves  upon  our  progress,  upon  our  knowledge,  our 
science  and  art,  our  institutions,  legal  and  charitable, 
whilst  all  the  time  the  breed  is  undergoing  retrogres- 
sion. 

We  see  now,  I  think,  the  explanation  of  the  truth 
expressed  by  Gibbon, — "  all  that  is  human  must  retro- 
grade if  it  do  not  advance."  Why  should  this  be  so? 
Why  should  it  not  be  possible  merely  to  maintain  a 


308     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

position  gained?  The  answer  is  that  the  civilization 
which  merely  maintains  its  position  is  one  in  which 
selection  has  ceased:  if  selection  had  not  ceased,  the 
position  would  be  more  than  maintained,  there  would 
be  advance.  But  without  selection  the  breed  will  cer- 
tainly degenerate,  the  lower  individuals  multiplying 
more  rapidly  than  higher  ones,  in  accordance  with 
Spencer's  law  that  the  higher  type  of  the  individual 
the  less  rapidly  does  he  multiply;  and  thus  the  race 
which  is  not  advancing  is  retrograding,  as  Gibbon 
declared. 

Natural  selection  is  the  sole  factor  of  efficient  and 
permanent  progress,  but  the  traditional  or  acquired 
progress  which  we  call  civilization  tends  to  thwart  or 
abrogate  or  even  invert  this  process.  I  thus  believe 
that  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  secure  ascent  of 
any  race,  an  ascent  secured  in  its  very  blood,  made 
stable  in  its  very  bone,  have  not  yet  been  achieved  in 
history;  and  I  advance  this  as  the  reason  why  history 
records  no  enduring  Empire. 

SOME  HISTORICAL  INSTANCES. —  In  the  face  of  cer- 
tain facts  of  contemporary  history  I  do  not  for  a  mo- 
ment assert  that  there  are  no  other  causes  of  Imperial 
failure  than  the  arrest  or  reversal  of  selection.  But 
I  do  assert  that  if  this  is  not  the  cause,  then,  in  the 
absence  of  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters,  the 
race  has  not  degenerated,  and  is  capable  of  reassert- 
ing itself.  Only  by  the  arrest  or  reversal  of  selection 
can  a  race  degenerate  —  apart  from  the  racial  poisons. 
If,  then,  a  civilization  or  Empire  has  fallen  through 
causes  altogether  non-biological  —  through  careless- 
ness, or  neglect  of  motherhood  or  alteration  of  ideals 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          309 

—  the  changes  in  character  so  produced  are  not  trans- 
mitted to  the  children,  and  the  race  is  not  degenerate 
but  merely  deteriorated  in  each  generation. 

For  instance,  we  have  been  brought  up  to  believe  that 
there  is  no  possible  future  for  Spain;  it  is  a  dying 
nation,  a  senile  individual,  a  people  of  degenerates;  it 
has  had  its  day,  which  can  never  return.  The  histo- 
rian explains  this  by  the  false  analogy  between  a  race 
and  an  individual,  and  by  the  false  Lamarckian  theory 
cf  heredity.  To  these  the  biologist  retorts  with  com- 
ments upon  their  falsity,  and  with  the  conviction  that 
since  Spain,  even  allowing  for  the  anti-eugenic  labors 
of  the  Inquisition,  has  not  been  subjected  to  the  only 
process  which  can  ensure  real  degeneration  —  viz., 
the  consistent  and  stringent  selection  of  the  worst  — 
she  is  yet  capable  of  regeneration.  Regeneration  is 
not  really  the  word,  because  there  has  been  little  real 
degeneration,  but  only  the  successive  deterioration  of 
successive  and  undegenerate  generations. 

If  we  took  an  animal  species  that  has  degenerated, 
such  as  the  intestinal  parasites,  and  endeavored  to  re- 
generate them,  we  should  begin  to  realize  the  magni- 
tude of  our  task.  That  is  not  the  task  for  Spain,  the 
biologist  asserts.  Merely  the  environment  must  be 
altered, —  not  the  mountain  ranges  and  the  rivers, 
Buckle  notwithstanding,  but  the  really  potent  factors 
in  the  environment,  the  spiritual  and  psychical  and  so- 
cial factors  and  the  deterioration  of  each  new  genera- 
tion, inherently  undegenerate,  will  cease.  I  am  using 
these  opposed  terms  with  great  care  and  of  set  pur- 
pose. 

And  the  biologist  is  right.     The  facts  concerning 


3io     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

which  so  many  historians  have  shaken  their  heads,  and 
upon  which  they  have  based  so  many  moralizings  and 
theories  of  history,  the  facts  which  they  have  cited  in 
support  of  their  false  analogies  and  misconceptions  of 
heredity  —  due,  of  course,  to  the  errors  of  former 
biology  —  turn  out  to  be  not  facts  at  all,  or,  at  any 
rate,  only  facts  of  the  moment.  The  "  dying  nation," 
as  Lord  Salisbury  called  it,  has  occasion  to  alter  its 
psychical  environment.  It  introduces  the  practice  of 
education;  it  begins  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  ecclesias- 
ticism ;  and  what  are  the  consequences  ? 

The  new  generation  is  found  to  be  potentially  little 
worse  and  little  better  than  its  predecessors  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  There  has  been  no  national  or  racial 
degeneration.  The  environment  is  modified  for  the 
better,  i.e.,  so  as  to  choose  the  better,  and  Spain,  as 
they  say  in  misleading  phrase,  "  takes  on  a  new  lease 
of  life."  The  historian  of  the  present  day,  knowing 
as  a  historian  what  qualities  of  blood  have  been  in  the 
Spanish  people,  and  basing  his  theories  upon  sound 
biology,  must  confidently  assert  that  that  blood,  inca- 
pable, as  he  knows,  of  degeneration  by  any  Lamarck- 
ian  process,  may  still  retain  its  ancient  quality  and 
will  yet  make  history. 

But  the  historian  might  well  write  a  volume  upon 
the  same  thesis  as  applied  to  China  and  Japan.  We 
know  historically  what  were  the  immediate  effects  in 
one  generation  of  a  total  change  of  environment  in 
Japan.  That  change  has  not  yet  occurred  in  China, 
but  must  inevitably  occur.  Consider  for  a  moment 
how  the  historian,  made  far-sighted  and  clear-sighted 
by  biology,  must  contemplate  the  history  of  this  as- 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY        311 

tounding  people.  The  popular  belief  used  to  be  that 
China  illustrated  the  so-called  law  of  nations.  It  was 
the  decadent,  though  monstrous,  relic  of  an  ancient 
civilization;  it  had  had  its  day.  Inevitable  degenera- 
tion, which  must  befall  all  peoples,  had  come  upon  it. 
Behold  it  in  the  paralysis  which  precedes  death ! 

But  in  the  light  of  the  facts  of  Japan,  the  man  in  the 
street  and  the  historian  alike  have  in  this  case  found 
modern  biology  superfluous  in  enabling  them  to  arrive 
at  sound  conclusions.  They  now  believe  what  the 
Darwinian  has  been  compelled  to  believe  for  half  a 
century,  and  more  strongly  than  ever  during  the  latter 
part  of  that  period,  when  the  doctrine  of  the  transmis- 
sion of  modifications  was  finally  discredited.  A  clever 
writer  invents  the  phrase  "  the  yellow  peril,"  and  peo- 
ple discard  their  old  theories.  The  metaphor  must  be 
changed.  This  is  not  paralysis,  but  merely  slumber. 
Doubtless,  it  is  an  unnatural  slumber;  doubtless,  it  is 
not  the  slumber  which  brings  renewed  strength.  It  is 
suspense  or  stupor,  not  recuperation;  but  assuredly  it 
is  not  paralysis.  Who  now  would  dare  to  say  that 
China  has  had  its  day,  even  if  he  still  clings  to  the  old 
fictions  about  Spain  ? 

MOTHERHOOD  AND  HISTORY. —  Here,  also,  reference 
must  again  be  made  to  another  factor  of  history  to 
which,  as  I  think,  the  biologist  must  attach  enormous 
importance,  but  which  no  historian  yet  has  adequately 
reckoned  with.  Our  prime  assumption  from  begin- 
ning to  end  is  that  "  there  is  no  wealth  but  life,"  or,  if 
one  may  venture  to  improve  upon  Ruskin,  there  is  no 
wealth  but  mind;  and  in  the  attempt  to  suggest  inter- 


312      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

pretations  of  history  based  upon  this  truth,  so  little 
recked  of  by  the  historian,  we  have  considered  the  life 
in  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  determina- 
tion by  heredity,  and  its  varying  value  according  to 
the  inherent  and  transmissible  characters  selected  in 
each  generation.  But  a  word  must  be  said  as  to  the 
other  factor  which,  with  heredity,  determines  the  char- 
acter of  the  individual — >and  that  factor  is  the  en- 
vironment. I  wish  merely  to  note  the  most  important 
aspect  of  the  environment  of  human  beings,  and  to  ob- 
serve that  historians  hitherto  have  wholly  ignored  it; 
yet  its  influence  is  incalculable.  I  refer  to  motherhood. 
One  might  have  the  most  perfect  system  of  selection 
of  the  finest  and  highest  individuals  for  parenthood; 
but  the  babies  whose  potentialities  —  heredity  gives 
no  more  —  are  so  splendid,  are  always,  will  be  always, 
dependent  upon  motherhood.  What  was  the  state  of 
motherhood  during  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire?  This  factor  counts  in  history;  and  always 
will  count  so  long  as,  three  times  in  every  century,  the 
only  wealth  of  nations  is  reduced  to  dust,  and  is  raised 
again  from  helpless  infancy.  As  to  Rome  we  know 
little,  whatever  may  be  suspected:  but  we  know  that 
here  in  the  heart  of  the  greatest  Empire  in  history  — 
and  it  is  at  the  heart  that  Empires  rot  —  thousands  of 
mothers  go  out  every  day  to  tend  dead  machines, 
whilst  their  own  flesh  and  blood,  with  whom  lies  the 
Imperial  destiny,  are  tended  anyhow  or  not  at  all. 
It  may  be  said  by  some  enlightened  historian  of  the 
future  that  the  living  wealth  of  this  people,  in  the 
twentieth  century,  began  to  be  eaten  away  by  the  cancer 
which  we  call  "  married  women's  labor,"  and  that,  as 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY 

will  be  evident  to  that  historian's  readers,  its  damna- 
tion was  sure.  To-day  our  historians  and  politicians 
think  in  terms  of  regiments  and  tariffs  and  "  Dread- 
naughts  " :  the  time  will  come  when  they  must  think  in 
terms  of  babies  and  motherhood.  We  must  think  in 
such  terms  too  if  we  wish  Great  Britain  to  be  much 
longer  great.  Meanwhile  some  of  us  see  the  perennial 
slaughter  of  babies  in  this  land,  and  the  deterioration  of 
many  for  every  one  killed  outright,  the  waste  of  mothers' 
travail  and  tears :  and  we  recall  Ruskin's  words : — 

"Nevertheless,  it  is  open,  I  repeat,  to  serious  question,  which 
I  leave  to  the  reader's  pondering,  whether,  among  national 
manufactures,  that  of  Souls  of  a  good  quality  may  not  at  last 
turn  out  a  quite  leadingly  lucrative  one?  Nay,  in  some  far- 
away and  yet  undreamt-of  hour,  I  can  even  imagine  that  Eng- 
land may  cast  all  thoughts  of  possessive  wealth  back  to  the 
barbaric  nations  among  whom  they  first  arose;  and  that,  while 
the  sands  of  the  Indus  and  adamant  of  Golconda  may  yet 
stiffen  the  housings  of  the  charger,  and  flash  from  the  turban 
of  the  slave,  she,  as  a  Christian  mother,  may  at  last  attain  to 
the  virtues  and  the  treasures  of  a  Heathen  one,  and  be  able  to 
lead  forth  her  Sons,  saying :— These  are  MY  Jewels." 

Had  all  Roman  mothers  been  Cornelias,  would  Rome 
have  fallen  ?  *  Consider  the  imitation  mothers  —  no 

1  Gibbon  does  not  enlighten  us  much  on  such  vital  matters : 
but  my  attention  has  been  called  to  the  following  passage,  not 
irrelevant  here.  It  is  from  the  Attic  Nights  of  Aulus  Gellius, 
Book  xii.,  chap,  i.,  written  about  A.D.  150  —  a  point  worth  noting. 
I  use  the  free  translation  of  Mr.  Quintin  Waddington: — 

"  Once  when  I  was  with  the  philosopher  Favorinus,  word  was 
brought  to  him  that  the  wife  of  one  of  his  disciples  had  just 
given  birth  to  a  son. 

"Let  us  go,'  said  he,  'To  inquire  after  the  mother,  and  to 
congratulate  the  father/  The  latter  was  a  noble  of  Senatorial 
rank. 

"All  of  us  who  were  present  accompanied  him  to  the 
house  and  went  in  with  him.  Meeting  the  father  in  the  hall, 
he  embraced  and  congratulated  him,  and,  sitting  down,  inquired 
how  his  wife  had  come  through  the  ordeal.  And  when  he 


314     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

longer  mammalia  —  to  be  found  in  certain  classes  to- 
day —  mothers  who  should  be  ashamed  to  look  'any 
tabby-cat  in  the  face ;  consider  the  ignorant  and  down- 
heard  that  the  young  mother,  overcome  with  fatigue,  was  now 
sleeping,  he  began  to  speak  more  freely. 

" '  Of  course/  said  he,  '  she  will  suckle  the  child  herself.' 
And  when  the  girl's  mother  said  that  her  daughter  must  be 
spared,  and  nurses  obtained  in  order  that  the  heavy  strain  of 
nursing  the  child  should  not  be  added  to  what  she  had  already 
gone  through,  '  I  beg  of  you,  dear  lady,'  said  he,  '  to  allow  her 
to  be  a  whole  mother  to  her  child.  Is  it  not  against  nature, 
and  being  only  half  a  mother,  to  give  birth  to  a  child,  and 
then  at  once  to  send  him  away?  To  have  nourished  with  her 
own  blood  and  in  her  own  body  a  something  that  she  had 
never  seen,  and  then  to  refuse  it  her  own  milk,  now  that  she 
sees  it  living,  a  human  being,  demanding  a  mother's  care? 
Or  are  you  one  of  those  who  think  that  nature  gave  a  woman 
breasts,  not  that  she  might  feed  her  children,  but  as  pretty  little 
hillocks  to  give  her  bust  a  pleasing  contour?  Many  indeed  of 
our  present-day  ladies  —  whom  you  are  far  from  resembling  — 
do  try  to  dry  up  and  repress  that  sacred  fount  of  the  body, 
the  nourisher  of  the  human  race,  even  at  the  risk  they  run 
from  turning  back  and  corrupting  their  milk,  lest  it  should 
take  off  from  the  charm  of  their  beauty.  In  doing  this  they 
act  with  the  same  folly  as  those,  who,  by  the  use  of  drugs  and 
so  forth,  endeavor  to  destroy  the  very  embryo  in  their  bodies, 
lest  a  furrow  should  mar  the  smoothness  of  their  skin,  and 
they  should  spoil  their  figures  in  becoming  mothers.  If  the 
destruction  of  a  human  being  in  its  first  inception,  whilst  it  is 
being  formed,  whilst  it  is  yet  coming  to  life,  and  is  still  in  the 
hands  of  its  artificer,  Nature,  be  deserving  of  public  detestation 
and  horror,  is  it  not  nearly  as  bad  to  deprive  the  child  of  his 
proper  and  congenial  ^nutriment  to  which  he  is  accustomed,  now 
that  he  is  perfected,  is  born  into  the  world,  is  a  child. 

"  But  it  makes  no  difference  —  for  as  they  say  —  so  long  as 
the  child  is  nourished  and  lives,  with  whose  milk  it  is  done. 

"  Why  does  he  who  says  this,  since  he  is  so  dull  in  under- 
standing nature,  think  it  also  of  no  consequence  in  whose  womb, 
and  from  whose  blood  the  child  is  formed  and  fashioned?  For 
is  there  not  now  in  the  breasts  the  same  blood  —  whitened,  it 
is  true  by  a'gration  and  heat  —  which  was  before  in  the  womb? 
And  is  not  the  wisdom  of  Nature  to  be  seen  in  this,  that  as 
soon  as  the  blood  has  done  its  work  of  forming  the  body  down 
below,  and  the  time  of  birth  has  come,  it  betakes  itself  to  the 
upper  parts  of  the  body,  and  is  ready  to  cherish  the  spark  of 
life  and  light  by  furnishing  to  the  new-born  babe  his  known 
and  accustomed  food?  And  so  it  is  not  an  idle  belief,  that, 
just  as  the  strength  and  character  of  the  seed  have  their  in- 
fluence in  determining  the  likeness  of  the  body  and  mind,  so 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         315 

^rodden  mothers  amongst  our  lower  classes;  and  ask 
whether  these  things  are  not  making  history. 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  JEWS. —  The  principles  the 
discussion  of  which  has  here  been  attempted  had  all 
been  set  down  before  it  suddenly  seemed  clear  that 

do  the  nature  and  properties  of  the  milk  do  their  part  in  effect- 
ing the  same  results.  And  this  has  been  noticed,  not  in  man 
alone,  but  in  cattle  as  well.  For  if  kids  are  brought  up  on  the 
milk  of  ewes,  or  lambs  on  that  of  goats,  it  is  agreed  that  the 
latter  have  stiffer  wool,  the  former  softer  hair.  In  the  case 
of  timber  and  fruit  trees,  too,  the  qualities  of  the  water  and 
soil  from  which  they  draw  their  nourishment  have  more  in- 
fluence in  stunting  or  augmenting  their  growth  than  those  of 
the  seed  which  is  sewn,  and  often  you  may  see  a  vigorous  and 
healthy  tree  when  transplanted  into  another  place  perish  owing 
to  the  poverty  of  the  soil. 

"  Is  it  then  a  reasonable  thing  to  corrupt  the  fine  qualities 
of  the  new-born  man,  well  endowed  as  to  both  body  and  mind 
so  far  as  parentage  is  concerned,  with  the  unsuitable  nourish- 
ment of  degenerate  and  foreign  milk?  Especially  is  this  the 
case,  if  she  whom  you  get  to  supply  the  milk  is  a  slave  or  of 
servile  estate,  and  —  as  is  very  often  the  case  —  of  a  foreign 
and  barbarous  race,  if  she  is  dishonest,  ugly,  unchaste,  or 
addicted  to  drink.  For  generally  any  woman  who  happens  to 
have  milk  is  called  in,  without  further  inquiry  as  to  her  suit- 
ability in  other  respects.  Shall  we  allow  this  babe  of  ours  to 
be  tainted  by  pernicious  contagion,  and  to  draw  life  into  his 
body  and  mind  from  a  body  and  mind  debased? 

"  This  is  the  reason  why  we  are  so  often  surprised  that  the 
children  of  chaste  mothers  resemble  their  parents  neither  in 
body  nor  character. 

".  .  .  And  besides  these  considerations,  who  can  afford 
to  ignore  or  belittle  the  fact  that  those  who  desert  their  off- 
spring and  send  them  away  from  themselves,  and  make  them 
over  to  others  to  nurse,  cut,  or  at  least  loosen  and  weaken  that 
chain  and  connection  of  mind  and  affection  by  which  Nature 
attaches  children  to  their  parents.  For  when  the  child,  sent 
elsewhere,  is  away  from  sight,  the  vigor  of  maternal  solicitude, 
little  by  little  dies  away,  and  the  call  of  motherly  instinct  grows 
silent,  and  forgetfulness  of  a  child  sent  away  to  nurse  is  not 
much  less  complete  than  that  of  one  lost  by  death. 

"  A  child's  thoughts  and  the  love  he  is  ever  ready  to  give, 
are  occupied,  moreover,  with  her  alone  from  whom  he  derives 
his  food,  and  soon  he  has  neither  feeling  nor  affection  for  the 
mother  who  bore  him.  The  foundations  of  the  filial  feelings 
with  which  we  are  born  being  thus  sapped  and  undermined, 
whatever  affection  children  thus  brought  up  may  seem  to  have 
for  father  and  mother,  for  the  most  part  is  not  natural  love, 
but  the  result  of  social  convention." 


3i6     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

they  found  their  warrant  and  application  in  the  un- 
exampled riddle  of  the  persistence  and  success,  through- 
out more  than  two  thousand  years  and  a  thousand 
vicissitudes,  of  the  Jewish  people.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  here  no  exception  to  the  apparent  law  that  Em- 
pires are  mortal,  for  within  this  period  there  never  was 
a  Jewish  Empire:  the  Jews  were  never  subject  to  the 
risk  involved  for  racial  or  inherent  progress  by  the  pos- 
session of  great  acquired  powers.  But  just  as  the  fall 
of  Empires  has  often  not  been  the  fall  of  races  —  va- 
rious races  having  at  various  times  carried  on  the  same 
Imperial  tradition  —  so  the  persistence  of  the  Jews,  as 
contrasted  with  the  impermanence  of  Empires,  has 
been  the  persistence  of  a  race.  I  believe  that  the  prin- 
ciples already  laid  down  offer  us  an  adequate  explana- 
tion of  this  unique  case:  and  further,  that  if  we  had 
begun  with  the  case  of  the  Jews,  endeavoring,  by  the 
investigation  of  their  case,  to  explain  the  contrasted 
case  of  other  races  and  of  all  Empires  hitherto,  we 
should  have  arrived  at  the  same  principles. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  that  race  or  people  decays 
in  which  selection  ceases  or  is  reversed;  that  in  the 
absence  of  selection  of  the  worthy  for  parenthood,  no 
species,  vegetable,  animal  or  human,  can  prosper  — 
much  less  progress.  Now  the  Jews,  the  one  human 
race  of  which  we  know  assuredly  that  it  has  persisted 
unimpaired,  have  been  the  most  continuously  and  strin- 
gently selected  of  any  race,  I  suppose,  that  can  be 
named.  Every  measure  of  persecution  and  repression 
practiced  against  them  by  the  people  amongst  whom 
they  have  lived,  has  directly  tended  towards  the  very 
end  which  those  people  least  desired  to  comj 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY          317 

Other  peoples  found  themselves  prosperous  through 
the  efforts  of  their  fathers;  the  struggle  for  existence 
abated;  it  was,  so  to  say,  as  fit  to  be  unfit  as  to  fit  — 
with  the  inevitable  result.  But  this  has  never  been  the 
case  of  the  Jews.  They  have  always  had  to  struggle 
for  life  intensely:  and  their  unexampled  struggle  has 
been  a  great  source  of  their  unexampled  strength. 
The  Jew  who  was  a  weakling  or  a  fool  had  no  chance 
at  all;  the  weaklings  and  the  fools  being  weeded  out, 
intensity  and  strength  of  mind  became  the  common 
heritage  of  this  amazing  people. 

Secondly,  there  was  everything  to  favor  mother- 
hood. Here  religious  precept  and  ethical  tradition 
joined  with  stern  necessity  to  the  same  end  —  the  end 
which  always  meant  a  new  and  strong  beginning  for 
the  next  generation.  Even  to-day  all  observers  are 
agreed  that  infant  mortality  is  at  a  minimum  amongst 
the  Jews;  their  children  are  superior  in  height  and 
weight  and  chest  measurement  to  Gentile  children 
brought  up  amidst  poverty  far  less  intense  in  our  own 
great  cities;  in  a  better  material  environment,  but  a 
far  inferior  maternal  environment.  The  Jewish 
mother  is  the  mother  of  children  innately  superior,  on 
the  average,  since  they  are  the  fruit  of  such  long 
ages  of  stringent  parental  selection,  and  she  makes 
more  of  them  because  she  fails  to  nurse  them  only  in 
the  rarest  cases,  when  she  has  no  choice,  and  because  in 
every  detail  her  maternal  care  is  incomparably  supe- 
rior to  that  of  her  Gentile  sister.  Given  a  high  stand- 
ard of  motherhood  in  a  highly  selected  race,  what  other 
result  than  that  we  daily  witness  and  envy  can  we  ex- 
pect? 


3i8     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Thirdly,  the  Jews  do  not  abuse  alcohol,  and  thus 
avoid  one  of  the  few  causes  of  true  racial  degeneration 
apart  from  the  selection  of  the  worst  for  parenthood. 

If  these  principles  are  valid,  it  is  evident  that  our 
redemption  from  the  fate  of  all  our  predecessors  is  to 
be  found  only  in  Eugenics — the  selection  of  the  best 
for  parenthood.  In  his  address  to  the  Sociological 
Society  in  1904,  in  which  he  defined  this  term,  Mr.  Gal- 
ton  named  as  one  of  the  duties  before  the  Society, 
"  Historical  inquiry  into  the  rates  with  which  the  va- 
rious classes  of  society  (classified  according  to  civic 
usefulness)  have  contributed  to  the  population  at  va- 
rious times,  in  ancient  and  modern  nations."  "  There 
is  strong  reason  for  believing,"  he  continued,  "  that 
national  rise  and  decline  is  closely  connected  with  this 
influence."  1 

WHAT  is  A  GOOD  ENVIRONMENT?  —  Using  the 
word  environment  in  its  widest  sense,  including,  for 
instance,  public  opinion  —  and  its  use  in  any  sense  less 
wide  is  always  erroneous  and  misleading  —  we  may 
say  that  it  is  our  business  to  provide  the  environment 
which  selects  the  best  for  parenthood  and  discourages 
the  parenthood  of  the  worst  —  say  the  deaf  and  dumb, 
the  feeble-minded,  the  insane,  the  epileptic,  the  ine- 
briate, those  afflicted  with  hereditary  disease  of  other 
kinds,  and  so  forth.  Our  principles  should  enable  us, 
also,  I  think  to  define  what  we  mean  by  a  good  environ- 
ment. Comprehensive  and  indiscriminate  charity 
means  a  good  environment  for  many  in  a  sense,  but  il 
may  also  mean  the  selection  of  the  worst  for  parent- 

1  Cf .  the  similar  dicta  of  Darwin  and  Pearson. 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         319 

hood  —  e.g.,  the  feeble-minded.  This  "good"  en- 
vironment then  means  the  degeneration  of  the  race. 
We  must  therefore  appraise  environment  in  terms  of 
its  selective  action.  A  good  environment  is  that  which 
selects  the  good,  and  the  best  environment  is  that  which 
selects  the  best;  discovers  them,  makes  the  utmost  of 
them,  and  confers  upon  them  the  supreme  privilege  and 
duty  of  parenthood.  That  and  that  alone  is  the  best 
environment,  and  all  other  moral  judgments  upon  en- 
vironment are  fallacious  and  will  be  disastrous. 

THE  NECESSARY  CONCLUSION. —  National  Eugenics 
teaches  that  the  first  duty  of  all  governments  and  pa- 
triots and  good  citizens  is,  to  quote  Ruskin  again, 
1  The  production  and  recognition  of  human  worth,  the 
detection  and  extinction  of  human  unworthiness." 
The  idea  is  not  new-fangled,  but  was  clearly  laid  down 
by  Plato,  and  by  Theognis  two  centuries  before  him. 

Eugenics  is  a  project  of  the  most  elevated  and  prov- 
ident morality,  aiming  at  no  object  less  sublime  than 
the  ennoblement  of  mankind;  and  if  one  may  suggest 
its  motto  it  would  be,  The  products  of  progress  are  not 
mechanisms  but  men.  It  is  based  upon  the  principle 
of  the  selection  or  choice  of  the  superior  for  parent- 
ood,  which  has  been  the  essential  factor  of  all  prog- 

ss  in  the  world  of  life,  but  which  all  civilizations 
have  tended  in  some  degree  to  abrogate  —  or  even  to 
reverse,  as  when  the  feeble-minded  child  is  cared  for 
till  maturity  and  sent  out  into  the  world  to  produce  its 
like,  whilst  healthy  children  are  daily  destroyed  by  ig- 
norance and  neglect. 

"  Through  Nature  only  can  we  ascend  " —  and  the 


':: 


320      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

merit  of  the  eugenic  proposal  is  that  it  is  built  upon 
"  the  solid  ground  of  nature." 

To  the  economist,  it  declares  that  the  culture  of  the 
racial  life  is  the  vital  industry  of  any  people. 

It  is  to  work  through  marriage,  an  institution  more 
ancient  than  mankind,  and  supremely  valuable  in  its 
services  to  childhood  —  with  which  lies  all  human  des- 
tiny. 

Eugenics  appeals  to  the  individual,  asking  for  a  little 
imagination,  which  will  make  us  realize  that  the  future 
will  one  day  be  the  present  and  that  to  serve  it  is  to 
serve  no  fiction  or  phantom,  but  a  reality  as  real  as  the 
present  generation. 

It  teaches  the  responsibility  of  the  noblest  and  most 
sacred  of  all  professions,  which  is  parenthood,  and  it 
makes  a  sober  and  dignified  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a 
constituent  of  the  religion  of  the  future. 

It  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter;  where  the  well- 
meaning,  but  short-sighted,  pin  their  faith  on  the  hos- 
pitals, the  eugenist  seeks  to  brand  the  transmission  of 
hereditary  disease  as  a  crime,  and  thus  literally  to  ex- 
tirpate it  altogether. 

That  its  methods  are  practicable  is  proven  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  practiced  —  as  by  the  northern  society 
for  the  "  Permanent  care  of  the  feeble-minded,"  which 
serves  the  present  and  the  future  simultaneously  and 
reconciles  the  law  of  love  with  the  earlier  law  of  na- 
ture—  which  asserts  that  parenthood  must  be  denied 
to  the  unworthy  —  without  blame  or  malice,  but  with- 
out exception.  It  suggests  the  principles  of  a  New 
Imperialism,  and  offers,  I  submit,  our  sole  chance  of 
escape  from  the  fate  which  has  overtaken  all  previous 


RACE  CULTURE  AND  HISTORY         321 

civilizations.  It  honors  men  and  women  by  declaring 
that  human  parenthood  is  crowned  with  responsibility 
to  the  unborn,  and  to  all  time  coming,  and  that  man, 
the  animal  in  body,  is  also  a  self-conscious  being, 
"  looking  before  and  after,"  who  is  human  because  he 
is  responsible,  and  to  whom  the  laws  of  nature  have 
been  revealed,  not  to  satisfy  an  intellectual  curiosity, 
but  for  the  highest  end  conceivable  —  the  elevation  of 
his  race. 

Let  me  quote  a  fine  passage  from  Wordsworth's 
"  Prelude  " :  — 

"With  settling  judgments  now  of  what  would  last 
And  what  would  disappear;  prepared  to  find 
Presumption,  folly,  madness,  in  the  men 
Who  thrust  themselves  upon  the  passive  world 
As  Rulers  of  the  world;  to  see  in  these, 
Even  when  the  public  welfare  is  their  aim, 
Plans  without  thought,  or  built  on  theories 
Vague  and  unsound;  and  having  brought  the  books 
Of  modern  statists  to  their  proper  test, 
Life,  human  life,  with  all  its  sacred  claims 
Of  sex  and  age,  and  heaven-descended  rights, 
Mortal,  or  those  beyond  the  reach  of  death; 
And  having  thus  discerned  how  dire  a  thing 
Is  worshipped  in  that  idol  proudly  named 
'The  Wealth  of  Nations;'  where  alone  that  wealth 
Is  lodged,  and  how  increased;  and  having  gained 
A  more  judicious  knowledge  of  the  worth 
And  dignity  of  individual  man, 
No  composition  of  the  brain,  but  man 
Of  whom  we  read,  the  man  whom  we  behold 
With  our  own  eyes  —  I  could  not  but  enquire  — 
Not  with  less  interest  than  heretofore, 
But  greater,  though  in  spirit  more  subdued  — 
Why  is  this  glorious  creature  to  be  found 
One  only  in  ten  thousand?    What  one  is, 
Why  may  not  millions  be?    What  bars  are  thrown 
By  Nature  in  the  way  of  such  a  hope?" 


322     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Consider  how  far  we  have  come,  the  base  degrees  by 
which  we  did  ascend,  and  answer  with  Shakespeare, 
"  There  are  many  events  in  the  womb  of  time  which 
will  be  delivered." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NATIONAL   EUGENICS MR.    BALFOUR   ON   DECADENCE 

(1)  "If  the  various  checks  specified  in  the  two  last  para- 
graphs, and  perhaps  others  as  yet  unknown,  do  not  prevent  the 
reckless,  the  vicious,  and  otherwise  inferior  members  of  society 
from  increasing  at  a  quicker  rate  than  the  better  class  of  men, 
the  nation  will  retrograde,   as  has  too  often   occurred  in  the 
history  of  the  world.     We  must  remember  that  progress  is  no 
invariable   rule.    It  is  very  difficult  to   say  why  one   civilized 
nation  rises,  becomes  more  powerful,  and  spreads  more  widely, 
than    another;     or    why    the    same    nation    progresses    more 
quickly  at  one  time  tfian  at  another.    We  can  only  say  that  it 
depends  on  an  increase  in  the  actual  number  of  the  population, 
on  the  number  of  the  men  endowed  with  high  intellectual  and 
moral    faculties,   as   well   as   on  their   standard   of   excellence. 
Corporeal  structure  appears  to  have  little  influence,  except  so 
far  as  vigor  of  body  leads  to  vigor  of  mind." — DARWIN,  The 
Descent  of  Man,  1871. 

(2)  Referring  to  "the  rates  with  which  the  various  classes 
of  society   (classified  according  to  civic  usefulness)   have  con- 
tributed  to   the   population    at   various   times,    in   ancient    and 
modern   nations,"    Mr.    Francis    Galton   said    "there   is   strong 
reason   for  believing  that  national  rise  and   decline   is  closely 
connected  with   this   influence." — GALTON,   Sociological   Papers, 
1904,  p.  47. 

(3)  "  The  inexplicable  decline  and  fall  of  nations  following 
from  no  apparent   external  cause   receives   instant   light   from 
the   relative   fertility  of   the  fitter  and  unfitter   elements   com- 
bined with  what  we  now  know  of  the  laws  of  inheritance."  * — 
PEARSON,  1904. 

(4)  To  the  question,   what  were  the  causes   of  the   fall  of 
Rome,   Mr.    Balfour   replies   "  I    feel   disposed   to   answer   De- 
cadence." 2 —  BALFOUR,  1908. 

1  National  Life  from  the  Standpoint  of  Science,  p.  99. 

2  "  Decadence,"    Henry    Sidgwick    Memorial    Lecture,    by   the 

323 


324     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

THE  lecture  of  which  the  previous  chapter  is  the  writ- 
ten form  was  prepared  and  delivered  before  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  Mr.  A.  J.  Balfour's  lecture  on 
"  Decadence  "  delivered  a  few  days  before.  That  has 
since  been  printed,  and  is  well  worthy  of  our  attention. 
In  Mr.  Balfour  we  have  a  representative  political 
thinker,  an  experimental  statesman  and,  furthermore, 
a  former  President  of  the  British  Association,  deeply 
interested  in,  and  favorably  disposed  towards,  scientific 
inquiry  and  scientific  method.  Further,  this  lecture  has 
been  widely  noticed,  though  all  the  criticisms  I  have 
seen  seem  to  me  to  miss  the  point.  No  apology,  then, 
is  necessary  for  a  special  discussion  of  this  most  sug- 
gestive lecture  in  direct  relation  with  the  foregoing 
theory  of  its  subject. 

Political  and  national  decadence  is  Mr.  Balfour's 
theme,  and  we  note  first  that  here  is  a  contemporary 
thinker,  not  unread  in  recent  biology,  including  the 
work  of  Weismann,  who  is  prepared  to  make  use  of 
the  idea  that  societies  are  inherently  mortal,  as  indi- 
viduals are.  One  wonders  when  we  shall  be  rid  of 
this  pernicious  instance  of  the  argument  from  analogy, 
which  is  already  much  more  than  two  thousand  years 
old. 

Next  it  may  be  noticed  that,  though  Mr.  Balfour 
has  deliberately  discussed  the  idea  of  natural  selection, 
he  has  been  led  wholly  astray  from  its  true  relation  to 
the  question  under  discussion  by  reason  of  falling  into 
the  common  error  which  Sir  E.  Ray  Lankester  has 
recently  exposed,  as  Huxley  did  many  decades  ago. 

Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.  Balfour,  M.P.,  delivered  at  Newnham  College, 
January  25,  1908.  (Cambridge  University  Press.) 


MR.  BALFOUR  ON  DECADENCE          325 

Mr.  Balfour  conceives  natural  selection  to  issue  from 
the  struggle  for  existence  between  species  or  societies. 
It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  all-important 
natural  selection  is  not  between  species  or  societies  but 
within  them.  The  struggle  for  existence  is  fought  out 
mainly  between  the  immature  individuals  of  any  spe- 
cies or  society.  Its  issue  determines  the  survivors  for 
parenthood  and  the  future.  Mr.  Balfour  must  have 
read  Professor  Ray  Lankester's  recent  Romanes  Lec- 
ture in  which  all  this  is  so  clearly  shown,  but  he  has 
unfortunately  retained  the  popular  conception  of  nat- 
ural selection  as  acting  between  species  or  societies,  and 
has  in  consequence  failed,  I  will  not  say  to  find,  but 
even  to  discuss  in  any  adequate  measure,  the  theory  of 
racial  and  national  decadence,  defined  in  the  preced- 
ing chapter.  He  merely  discusses  "  competition  be- 
tween groups  of  communities/'  and  rightly  finds  it  in- 
adequate to  account  for  the  great  tragedies  of  history. 
There  follows  a  passage  which  may  be  heartily  as- 
sented to,  on  the  very  grounds  on  which  the  entire  lec- 
ture may  be  welcomed,  namely,  that  it  suggests  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  common  explanations  of  national  de- 
cadence advanced  by  historians.  Says  Mr.  Balfour: — • 

"  It  is  in  vain  that  historians  enumerate  the  public  calamities 
which  preceded,  and  no  doubt  contributed  to,  the  final  catas- 
trophe. Civil  dissensions,  military  disasters,  pestilences,  fam- 
ines, tyrants,  tax-gatherers,  growing  burdens,  and  waning 
wealth  —  the  gloomy  catalogue  is  unrolled  before  our  eyes,  yet 
somehow  it  does  not  in  all  cases  wholly  satisfy  us :  we  feel  that 
some  of  these  diseases  are  of  a  kind  which  a  vigorous  body 
politic  should  easily  be  able  to  survive,  that  others  are  sec- 
ondary symptoms  of  some  obscurer  malady,  and  that  in  neither 
case  do  they  supply  us  with  the  full  explanation  of  which  we 
are  in  search." 


326      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

One  must  heartily  thank  the  author  for  the  abundant 
demonstration  which  follows,  well-warranting  our  feel- 
ing that  these  explanations  do  not  suffice  —  nor  yet,  in 
the  case  of  Rome,  diminution  of  population,  nor  the 
"  brutalities  of  the  gladiatorial  shows,"  nor  "  the  gratu- 
itous distribution  of  bread  to  the  urban  mobs/'  nor  yet 
slavery,  lately  declared,  by  Mr.  W.  R.  Paterson,  in  his 
Nemesis  of  Nations,  to  be  the  cause  of  the  fall  of  em- 
pires. As  Mr.  Balfour  says,  "  Who  can  believe  that 
this  immemorial  custom  could,  in  its  decline,  destroy 
the  civilization,  which,  in  its  vigor,  it  had  helped  to 
create  ?  "  It  would  have  been  more  important,  per- 
haps, to  consider,  as  Mr.  Balfour  does  not,  the  latest 
view,  advanced  by  Professor  Ronald  Ross,  that  the  in- 
cursion of  malaria  may  have  had  something  to  do  with 
the  fall  of  Rome. 

MR.  BALFOUR'S  THEORY  —  DECADENCE  THE  CAUSE 
OF  DECADENCE. —  Mr.  Balfour  then  falls  back  upon 
"  decadence  "  as  the  explanation,  and  to  the  critic  of 
this  elegant  hypothesis  that  decadence  is  due  to  de- 
cadence, replies  that  it  is  something  to  recognize  the 
possibility  of  "  subtle  changes  in  the  social  tissues  of 
old  communities."  One  regrets  all  the  more  that  he 
should  not  have  considered  anti-eugenic  practices  as 
possibly  accounting  for  these  subtle  changes.  One 
must  however  quote  the  excellent  passage  in  which  Mr. 
Balfour  supports  his  use  of  the  word  decadence, 
though  one  utterly  disagrees  with  the  suggestion  that 
the  term  "  old  age  "  might  be  its  equivalent.  He  says : 
"  The  facile  generalizations  with  which  we  so  often 
season  the  study  of  dry  historic  fact ;  the  habits  of  po- 
litical discussion  which  induce  us  to  catalogue  for  pur- 


MR.  BALFOUR  ON  DECADENCE         327 

poses  of  debate  the  outward  signs  that  distinguish  (as 
we  are  prone  to  think)  the  standing  from  the  falling 
state,  hide  the  obscurer,  the  more  potent,  forces  which 
silently  prepare  the  fate  of  empires." 

We  may  note  with  interest  (and  surely  with  surprise 
when  we  consider  Japan  and  Spain  and  the  China  of 
to-morrow),  Mr.  Balfour's  rejection  of  the  doctrine 
that  "  arrested  progress,  and  even  decadence,  may  be 
but  the  prelude  to  a  new  period  of  vigorous  growth. 
So  that  even  those  races  or  nations  which  seem  frozen 
into  eternal  immobility  may  base  upon  experience  their 
hopes  of  an  awakening  spring."  It  is,  I  fancy,  Mr. 
Balfour's  fondness  for  the  Platonic  idea  of  senility  in 
the  race  as  in  the  individual,  that  leads  him  to  question 
what  can  surely  be  no  longer  denied.  Thus  a  little 
later  we  find  him  saying,  "  if  civilization  wear  out,  and 
races  become  effete,  why  should  we  expect  to  progress 
indefinitely,  why  for  us  alone  is  the  doom  of  man  to  be 
reversed  ?  " 

Nowhere  in  this  lecture  is  there  any  recognition  of 
what,  I  confess,  seems  to  me  to  be  an  obvious  and 
necessary  truth,  the  distinction  between  the  two  kinds 
of  progress  —  racial  progress  due  to  the  choice  of  the 
best  for  parenthood,  and  acquired  or  traditional  prog- 
ress. It  may  be  suggested  that  no  one  can  usefully 
discuss  decadence  or  progress  until  he  has  seen  and  per- 
ceived this  absolutely  cardinal  distinction,  suggested  in 
my  Royal  Institution  lectures  in  February,  1907,  as 
one  of  the  great  lessons  taught  by  the  study  of  biology 
to  the  student  of  progress. 

Mr.  Balfour  does  indeed  avoid  all  those  false  solu- 
tions which  depend  upon  a  Lamarckian  belief  in  the 


328     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

transmission  of  acquired  characters.  This,  however, 
instead  of  leading  him  to  insist  upon  the  Darwinian 
contribution  to  the  study  of  decadence  —  the  idea  of 
selection  —  causes  him  to  regard  the  racial  question  as 
unimportant.  He  notes  one  or  two  of  the  fashions 
in  which  the  quality  of  a  race  may  be  modified,  thus  in- 
fluencing national  character,  and  then  dismisses  this 
question  (wherein,  as  I  cannot  doubt,  everything  mate- 
rial lies)  with  the  remark,  "  but  such  changes  are  not 
likely,  I  suppose,  to  be  considerable,  except  perhaps 
those  due  to  the  mixture  of  races  —  and  that  only  in 
new  countries."  —  Reaching  page  45,  the  reader  finds 
himself  confident  that  now  at  length  the  writer  has  put 
his  finger  on  the  crux  of  the  problem.  Yet  that  is  how 
he  dismisses  it;  adding,  indeed,  to  make  it  quite  clear, 
the  following  words :  "  The  flexible  element  in  any 
society,  that  which  is  susceptible  of  progress  or  de- 
cadence, must  therefore  be  looked  for  rather  in  the 
physical  and  psychical  conditions  affecting  the  life  of 
its  component  units,  than  in  their  inherited  constitu- 
tion." 

Not  a  word  as  to  the  cessation  of  selection!  This 
omission,  which  is,  indeed,  the  omission  of  the  fact  of 
'decadence,  mainly  depends,  one  fancies,  upon  that  er- 
roneous conception  of  natural  selection  as  acting  be- 
tween species  and  societies  rather  than  within  them, 
which  for  so  many  decades  the  biologist  has  been  at 
pains  to  correct.  One  would  indeed  have  thought  that, 
for  a  scholar  and  student  like  Mr.  Balfour,  Words- 
worth's great  sonnet  would  have  sufficed  to  set  up  a 
train  of  thought,  which,  fusing  with  ordinary  biologi- 
cal principles,  would  have  led  him  to  what  I  believe  to 


MR.  BALFOUR  ON  DECADENCE          329 

be  the  truth.     Let  us  for  a  moment  turn  to  its  consid- 
eration :  — 

"  When  I  have  borne  in  memory  what  has  tamed 
Great  Nations,  how  ennobling  thoughts  depart 
When  men  change  swords  for  ledgers.     .     .     ." 

Should  not  this  be  enough  to  suggest  to  us  the  real 
meaning  of  the  consequence  which  has  followed  when 
men  changed  swords  for  ledgers,  and  which  even  those 
who  hate  war  as  a  vile  blasphemy  against  life,  must 
recognize?  It  is  that,  as  we  have  seen,  when  a  nation 
is  making  its  way  there  is  selection  of  the  fittest  by  the 
stern  arbitrament  of  war,  in  which  the  battle  is  to  the 
individually  strong  and  fleet  and  brave  and  quick- 
witted. Later,  "  when  men  change  swords  for  led- 
gers," selection  ceases;  and  that  is  why  nothing  fails 
like  success.  Yet  later  still,  as  France  should  know, 
selection  by  war  must  take  the  form  of  reverse 
selection,  the  flower  of  a  nation's  youth  being  immo- 
lated on  the  battle-field,  whilst  its  future  is  determined 
by  the  weak  and  small  and  diseased,  whom  the  recruit- 
ing sergeant  rejects.  "  You  are  not  good  enough  to 
be  a  soldier,"  he  says ;  "  stay  at  home  and  be  a  father." 
That  was  what  Napoleon  did  for  France. 

But  to  return  —  for  the  relations  of  war  to  eugenics 
would  really  demand  a  volume  —  it  may  be  noted  that, 
though  rejecting  the  Lamarckian  theory  —  the  theory 
on  which  nothing  should  succeed  like  success  —  Mr. 
Balfour  nowhere  emphasizes  the  amazing  paradox  of 
history  that  nothing  fails  like  success.  If  we  consider 
this  fact  with  the  idea  of  natural  selection  in  our  minds 
(not  between  societies  but  within  them),  we  cannot 


330    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

fail  to  perceive  that  success  involves  failure,  because  it 
involves  failure  of  selection,  and  therefore  indiscrim- 
inate survival ;  or  indeed,  survival  of  the  worst. 

POLITICS  AND  DOMESTICS. —  It  is,  perhaps,  a  note- 
worthy comment  upon  what  may  be  called  the  political 
state  of  mind,  that  even  when  the  idea  of  natural  se- 
lection has  entered  it,  the  bias  is  towards  associating  it 
with  international  and  not  with  intra-national  or  do- 
mestic politics.  The  time  will  come,  however,  when 
the  politician  —  or  shall  we  say  the  statesman  ?  —  re- 
alizes that  it  is  the  domestic  policy,  it  is  the  internal 
struggle  for  survival  within  a  society,  that  conditions 
and  fore-ordains  all  international  politics.  The  his- 
tory of  nations  is  determined  not  on  the  battlefield  but 
in  the  nursery,  and  the  battalions  which  give  lasting 
victory  are  battalions  of  babies.  The  politics  of  the 
future  will  be  domestics. 

Having  rejected  so  many  solutions  of  his  problem, 
and  having  ignored  the  solution  which  is  advanced  in 
this  volume,  Mr.  Balfour  is  reduced  to  such  desperate 
resorts  as  phrases  like  this:  "the  point  at  which  the 
energy  of  advance  is  exhausted  " —  a  mere  meaning- 
less phrase;  and  even  such  an  explanation  as  that 
through  "  mere  weariness  of  spirit  the  community  re- 
signs itself  to  ...  stagnation."  One  is  in- 
clined to  throw  up  one's  hands  and  ask  —  Do  you, 
then,  who  deny  the  Lamarckian  theory,  suppose  that 
the  fresh  children  come  into  the  world  with  this  "  mere 
weariness  of  spirit  "  ?  Has  this  been  observed  in  chil- 
dren ?  Is  there  anything  conceivable  that  has  been  less 
observed  in  children,  in  all  times  and  all  places  ?  And 


MR.  BALFOUR  ON  DECADENCE         331 

if  that  be  so  what  kind  of  explanation  of  decadence  is 
this? 

SCIENCE  AND  INDUSTRY. —  Lastly,  in  a  series  of  fine 
passages,  Mr.  Balfour  offers  us  some  hope  in  the  help 
of  science.  Politics,  says  our  ex-Premier,  too  often 
means  "  the  barren  exchange  of  one  set  of  tyrants  or 
jobbers,  for  another " ;  a  Daniel  come  to  judgment. 
We  owe  the  modern  spirit  and  modern  progress,  he 
tells  us,  neither  to  politicians  nor  to  political  institu- 
tions, nor  to  theologians  nor  to  philosophers,  but  to 
science,  which,  he  well  says,  "  is  the  great  instrument 
of  social  change,  all  the  greater  because  its  object  is  not 
change  but  knowledge;  and  its  silent  appropriation  of 
this  dominant  function,  amid  the  din  of  political  and 
religious  strife,  is  the  most  vital  of  all  the  revolutions 
which  have  marked  the  development  of  modern  civili- 
zation." 

And  our  cause  of  hope  is  "  a  social  force,  new  in 
magnitude  if  not  in  kind  ...  the  modern  alliance 
between  pure  science  and  industry."  To  this  I  answer 
a  thousand  times  yes,  but  I  must  define  the  kind  of  in- 
dustry. It  is  the  culture  of  the  racial  life  which  is  the 
vital  industry  of  any  nation,  and  which  Mr.  Balfour 
has  not  even  distantly  alluded  to.  I  agree  that  our 
hope  for  the  future  is  to  be  found  in  science:  that,  as 
has  been  said  already,  perchance  our  acquired  or  tra- 
ditional progress  in  knowledge  has  now  reached  the 
point  at  which  we  have  sufficient  to  reveal  to  us  the 
necessity  of  racial  progress  and  the  means  by  which  that 
may  be  effected. 

"  Science  and  industry/' —  yes,  indeed !  .  But  the  in- 


332     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

dustry  is  to  be  the  making  not  of  machines,  but  men. 
The  products  of  progress  are  not  mechanisms  but  men, 
and  one  may  now  ask,  what  is  the  industry  whose 
products  can  be  named  in  the  same  breath  with  the  men 
and  women  who  shall  yet  be  produced  by  the  supreme 
industry  of  race-culture? 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   PROMISE   OF   RACE   CULTURE 

"  The  best  is  yet  to  be  " 

IN  its  form  of  what  we  have  called  negative  eugenics, 
the  practice  of  our  principle  would  assuredly  reduce 
to  an  incalculable  extent  the  amount  of  human  defect, 
mental  and  physical,  which  each  generation  now  ex- 
hibits. This  alone,  as  has  been  said,  would  be  far 
more  than  sufficient  to  justify  us.  A  world  without 
hereditary  disease  of  mind  and  body  would  alone  war- 
rant the  hint  of  Ruskin  that  posterity  may  some  day 
look  back  upon  us  with  "  incredulous  disdain."  Yet, 
assuming  that  this  could  be  accomplished,  as  it  will  be 
accomplished,  what  more  is  to  be  hoped  for?  Must 
race-culture  cease  merely  when  it  has  raised  the  aver- 
age of  the  community  by  reducing  to  a  minimum  the 
proportion  of  those  who  are  thus  grossly  defective  in 
mind  or  body?  Such  disease  apart,  are  we  to  be  con- 
tent, must  we  be  content,  with  the  present  level  of 
mediocrity  in  respect  of  intelligence  and  temper  and 
moral  sentiment?  Can  we  anticipate  a  London  in 
which  the  present  ratio  of  musical  comedy  to  great 
opera  will  be  reversed,  in  which  the  works  of  Mr. 
George  Meredith  will  sell  in  hundreds  of  thousands, 
whilst  some  of  our  popular  novelists  will  have  to  find 
other  means  of  earning  a  living?  Can  we  make  for  a 

333 


334     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

critical  democracy  which  no  political  party  can  fool, 
and  which  will  choose  its  best  to  govern  it?  Yet  more, 
can  we  undertake,  now  or  hereafter,  to  provide  every 
generation  with  its  own  Shakespeare  and  Beethoven 
and  Tintoretto  and  Newton  ?  What,  in  a  word,  is  the 
promise  of  positive  eugenics?  It  is  to  this  aspect  of 
the  question  that  Mr.  Galton  has  mainly  directed  him- 
self. Indeed  he  was  led  to  formulate  the  principles 
and  ideals  of  the  new  science  by  his  study  of  hereditary 
genius  some  four  decades  ago.  Let  us  now  attempt  to 
answer  some  of  these  questions. 

THE  PRODUCTION  OF  GENIUS. —  And  first  as  to  the 
production  of  genius.  It  is  this,  perhaps,  that  has  been 
the  main  butt  of  the  jesters  who  pass  for  philosophers 
with  some  of  us  to-day.  It  may  be  said  at  once  that 
neither  Mr.  Galton  nor  any  other  responsible  person  has 
ever  asserted  that  we  can  produce  genius  at  will.  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  project  —  at  present 
—  are  almost  innumerable.  One  or  two  may  be  cited. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  cardinal  —  but  by  no 
means  universal  —  difficulty  that  the  genius  is  too  com- 
monly so  occupied  with  the  development  and  expansion 
of  his  own  individuality  that  he  has  little  time  or  en- 
ergy for  the  purposes  of  the  race.  This,  of  course,  is 
an  example  of  Spencer's  great  generalization  as  to  the 
antagonism  or  inverse  ratio  between  individuation  and 
genesis. 

Again,  there  is  the  generalization  of  heredity  formu- 
lated by  Mr.  Galton,  and  named  by  him  the  law  of 
regression  towards  mediocrity.  It  asserts  that  the 
children  of  those  who  are  above  or  below  the  mean  of 
a  race,  tend  to  return  towards  that  mean.  The  chil- 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      335 

dren  of  the  born  criminal  will  be  probably  somewhat 
less  criminal  in  tendency  than  he,  though  more  crim- 
inal than  the  average  citizen.  The  children  of  the 
man  of  genius,  if  he  has  any,  will  probably  be  nearer 
mediocrity  than  he,  though  on  the  average  possessing 
greater  talent  than  the  average  citizen.  It  is  thus  not 
in  the  nature  of  sheer  genius  to  reproduce  on  its  own 
level.  It  is  only  the  critics  who  are  totally  ignorant 
of  the  elementary  facts  of  heredity  that  attribute  to  the 
eugenist  an  expectation  of  which  no  one  knows  the 
absurdity  so  well  as  he  does. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  question  that 
the  hereditary  transmission  of  genius  or  great  talent 
does  occur.  One  may  cite  at  random  such  cases  as 
that  of  the  Bach  family,  Thomas  and  Matthew  Arnold, 
James  and  John  Stuart  Mill:  and  the  reader  who  is 
inclined  to  believe  that  there  is  no  law  or  likelihood  in 
this  matter,  must  certainly  make  himself  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Galton's  Hereditary  Genius,  and  with  such  a 
paper  as  that  which  he  printed  in  Sociological  papers, 
1904,  furnishing  an  "  index  to  achievements  of  near 
kinsfolk  of  some  of  the  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society." 
There  is,  of  course,  the  obvious  fallacy  involved  in  the 
possibility  that  not  heredity  but  environment  was  really 
responsible  for  many  of  these  cases.  It  must  have 
been  a  great  thing  to  have  such  a  father  as  James  Mill. 
But  it  would  be  equally  idle  to  imagine  that  the  evi- 
dence can  be  dismissed  with  this  criticism.  A  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  a  John  Stuart  Mill,  could  not  be  manu- 
factured out  of  any  chance  material  by  an  ideal  educa- 
tion continued  for  a  thousand  years. 

THE  TRANSMISSION  OF  GENIUS. —  One    single    in-? 


336     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

stance  of  the  transmission  of  genius  or  great  talent  in 
a  family  may  be  cited.  We  shall  take  the  family 
which  produced  Charles  Darwin,  the  discoverer  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  eugenics,  and  his  first  cousin, 
Francis  Galton.  Darwin's  grandfather  was  Erasmus 
Darwin,  physician,  poet  and  philosopher,  and  inde- 
pendent expounder  of  the  doctrine  of  organic  evolu- 
tion. Darwin's  father  was  a  distinguished  physician, 
described  by  his  son  as  "  the  wisest  man  I  ever  knew." 
Darwin's  maternal  grandfather  was  Josiah  Wedg- 
wood, the  famous  founder  of  the  pottery  works. 
Amongst  his  first  cousins  is  Mr.  Francis  Galton.  He 
has  five  living  sons,  each  a  man  of  great  distinction, 
including  Mr.  Francis  Darwin  and  Sir  George  Darwin, 
both  of  them  original  thinkers,  honored  by  the  presi- 
dency of  the  British  Association.  No  one  will  put 
such  a  case  as  this  down  to  pure  chance  or  to  the  influ- 
ence of  environment  alone.  This  is  evidently,  like 
many  others,  a  greatly  distinguished  stock.  The  worth 
of  such  families  to  a  nation  is  wholly  beyond  any  one's 
powers  of  estimation.  What  if  Erasmus  Darwin  had 
never  married! 

No  student  of  human  heredity  can  doubt  that,  how- 
ever limited  our  immediate  hopes,  facts  such  as  those 
alluded  to  furnish  promise  of  great  things  for  the 
future.  But  let  us  turn  now  from  genius  to  what  we 
usually  call  talent. 

THE  PRODUCTION  OF  TALENT. —  There  can  be  no 
question  that  amongst  the  promises  of  race-culture  is 
the  possibility  of  breeding  such  things  as  talent  and 
the  mental  energy  upon  which  talent  so  largely  de- 
pends. In  his  Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty,  Mr. 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      337 

Gallon  shows  the  remarkable  extent  to  which  energy 
or  the  capacity  for  labor  underlies  intellectual  achieve- 
ment. He  says,  of  energy :  — 

"  It  is  consistent  with  all  the  robust  virtues,  and  makes  a 
large  practice  of  them  possible.  It  is  the  measure  of  fullness 
of  life;  the  more  energy  the  more  abundance  of  it;  no  energy 
at  all  is  death;  idiots  are  feeble  and  listless.  In  the  enquiries 
I  made  on  the  antecedents  of  men  of  science  no  points  came 
out  more  strongly  than  that  the  leaders  of  scientific  thought 
were  generally  gifted  with  remarkable  energy,  and  that  they 
had  inherited  the  gift  of  it  from  their  parents  and  grandparents. 
I  have  since  found  the  same  to  be  the  case  in  other  careers. 
It  may  be  objected  that  if  the  race  were  too  healthy 
and  energetic  there  would  be  insufficient  call  for  the  exercise 
of  the  pitying  and  self-denying  virtues,  and  the  character  of 
men  would  grow  harder  in  consequence.  But  it  does  not  seem 
reasonable  to  preserve  sickly  breeds  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
tending  them,  as  the  breed  of  foxes  is  preserved  solely  for 
sport  and  its  attendant  advantages.  There  is  little  fear  that 
misery  will  ever  cease  from  the  land,  or  that  the  compassionate 
will  fail  to  find  objects  for  their  compassion;  but  at  present 
the  supply  vastly  exceeds  the  demand:  the  land  is  over-stocked 
and  over-burdened  with  the  listless  and  the  incapable.  In  any 
scheme  of  eugenics,  energy  is  the  most  important  quality  to 
favor;  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  basis  of  living  action,  and  it 
is  eminently  transmissible  by  descent." 

Need  it  be  pointed  out  that  any  political  system 
which  ceases  to  favor  or  actively  disfavors  energy, 
making  it  as  profitable  to  be  lazy  as  to  be  active,  is  anti- 
eugenic,  and  must  inevitably  lead  to  disaster?  That, 
however,  by  the  way.  Our  present  point  is  that 
eugenics  can  reasonably  promise,  when  its  principles 
are  recognized,  to  multiply  the  human  1  and  diminish 
the  vegetable  type  in  the  community.  In  so  doing,  it 
will  greatly  further  the  production  of  talent,  and  there- 

1 "  Restless  activity  proves  the  man,"  as  Goethe  says. 


338     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

fore  of  that  traditional  or  acquired  progress  which  men 
of  talent  and  genius  create.  Such  a  result  will  also 
further,  though  indirectly,  the  production  of  genius  it- 
self. For,  as  Mr.  Galton  points  out,  "  men  of  an  order 
of  ability  which  is  now  very  rare,  would  become  more 
frequent,  because  the  level  out  of  which  they  rose 
would  itself  have  risen." 

This  is  by  no  means  the  only  fashion  in  which  an 
effective  and  practicable  race-culture  would  serve 
genius,  and  I  shall  not  be  blamed  for  considering  this 
matter  further  by  any  reader  who  realizes,  however 
faintly,  what  the  man  of  genius  is  worth  to  the  world. 
If  it  were  shown  possible  to  establish  such  social  con- 
ditions that  genius  could  never  flower  in  them,  we 
should  realize  that  their  establishment  would  mean  the 
putting  of  an  end  to  progress  and  the  blasting  of  all 
the  highest  hopes  of  the  highest  of  all  ages. 

The  immediate  need  of  this  age,  as  of  all  ages,  is 
perhaps  not  so  much  the  birth  of  babies  capable  of 
developing  into  men  and  women  of  genius,  as  the  full 
exploitation  of  the  possibilities  of  genius  with  which, 
as  I  fancy,  every  generation  on  the  average  is  about  as 
well  endowed  as  any  other.  There  is,  of  course,  the 
popular  doctrine  that  there  are  no  mute  inglorious  Mil- 
tons,  that  "  genius  will  out,"  and  that  therefore  if  it 
does  not  appear,  it  is  not  there  to  appear.  In  ex- 
pressing the  compelling  power  of  genius  in  many 
cases,  this  doctrine  is  not  without  truth.  Yet 
history  abounds  in  instances  where  genius  has 
been  destroyed  by  environment  —  and  we  can  only 
guess  how  many  more  instances  there  are  of  which 
history  has  no  record.  To  take  the  single  case  of 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE       339 

musical  genius,  it  is  a  lamentable  thought  that  there 
may  be  those  now  living  whose  natural  endowments, 
in  a  favorable  environment,  would  have  enabled  them 
to  write  symphonies  fit  to  place  beside  Beethoven's, 
but  whom  some  environmental  factors  —  conventional, 
economic,  educational,  or  what  not  —  have  silenced; 
or  worse,  have  persuaded  to  write  such  sterile  nullities 
as  need  not  here  be  instanced.  There  is  surely  no 
waste  in  all  this  wasteful  world  so  lamentable  as  this 
waste  of  genius. 

If,  then,  any  one  could  devise  for  us  a  means  by 
which  the  genius,  potentially  existing  at  any  time,  were 
realized,  he  would  have  performed  in  effect  a  service 
equivalent  to  that  of  which  eugenics  repudiates  the 
present  possibility  —  the  actual  creation  of  genius. 
But  if  we  consider  what  the  conditions  are  which  cause 
the  waste  of  genius,  we  realize  at  once  that  they  mainly 
inhere  in  the  level  of  the  human  environment  of  the 
priceless  potentiality  in  question.  As  we  noted  else- 
where, in  an  age  like  that  of  Pericles  genius  springs 
up  on  all  hands.  It  is  encouraged  and  welcomed  be- 
cause the  average  level  of  the  human  environment  in 
which  it  finds  itself  is  so  high.  But  if  eugenics  can 
raise  the  average  level  of  intelligence,  in  so  doing  not 
merely  does  it  render  more  likely,  as  Mr.  Galton  points 
out,  the  production  of  men  of  the  highest  ability,  but 
it  provides  those  conditions  in  which  men  of  genius, 
now  swamped,  can  swim.  We  could  not  undertake 
to  produce  a  Shakespeare,  but  we  might  reasonably 
hope  to  produce  a  generation  which  would  not  destroy 
its  Shakespeares.  And  even  if  men  of  genius  still  found 
it  necessary,  as  men  of  genius  have  found  it  necessary, 


340     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

to  "play  to  the  gallery,"  they  would  play,  as  Mr. 
Galton  says  of  the  demagogue  in  a  eugenic  age,  "  to  a 
more  sensible  gallery  than  at  present." 

Darwin  somewhere  points  out  that  it  is  not  the  sci- 
entific, but  the  unscientific  man  who  denies  future  pos- 
sibilities. Thus  though  an  advocate  of  eugenics  may 
be  applauded  for  his  judgment  if  he  declares  that  the 
creation  of  genius  will  for  ever  be  impossible,  yet  I 
should  not  care  to  assert  that  the  ultimate  limitations 
of  eugenics  can  thus  be  defined.  We  have  yet  to  hear 
the  last  of  Mendelism. 

EUGENICS  AND  UNEMPLOYMENT. —  Let  us  look  now 
at  another  aspect  of  the  promise  of  race-culture.  When 
the  time  comes  that  quality  rather  than  quantity  is  the 
ideal  of  those  who  concern  themselves  with  the  popu- 
lation question,  it  is  quite  evident  that  not  a  few  of  the 
social  problems  which  we  now  find  utterly  insoluble 
will  disappear.  In  this  brief  outline,  we  can  only 
allude  to  one  or  two  points.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
question  of  unemployment.  We  know  that  some  by 
no  means  small  proportion  of  the  unemployed  were 
really  destined  to  be  unemployable  from  the  first,  as 
for  instance  by  reason  of  hereditary  disease.  It  were 
better  for  them  and  for  us  that  they  had  never  been 
born.  Many  more  of  the  unemployed  have  been  made 
unemployable  by  the  influence  of  over-crowding,  to 
which  they  were  subjected  in  their  years  of  develop- 
ment. Is  there,  can  there  be,  any  real  and  permanent 
remedy  for  overcrowding,  but  the  erection  of  parent- 
hood into  an  act  of  personal  and  provident  responsi- 
bility? 

EUGENICS  AND  WOMAN. —  Take,  again,  the  woman 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      341 

question.  No  one  will  deny  that  in  many  of  its  gravest 
forms,  especially  in  its  economic  form,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  the  employment  of  women,  wisely  or  horribly, 
this  depends  (to  a  degree  which  few,  I  think,  realize) 
upon  the  fact  that  there  are  now,  for  instance,  1,300,- 
ooo  women  in  excess  in  this  country.  Is  it  then  pro- 
posed, the  reader  will  say,  by  means  of  race-culture  to 
exterminate  the  superfluous  woman?  Indeed,  no. 
But  is  the  reader  aware  that  Nature  is  not  responsible 
for  the  existence  of  the  superfluous  woman?  There 
are  more  boys  than  girls  born  in  the  ratio  of  about  103 
or  104  to  100:  and  Nature  means  them  all  to  live,  boys 
and  girls  alike.  If  they  did  so  live,  we  should  have 
merely  the  problem  of  the  superfluous  man,  which 
would  not  be  an  economic  problem  at  all.  But  we  de- 
stroy hosts  of  all  the  children  that  are  born,  and  since 
male  organisms  are  in  general  less  resistant  than  fe- 
male organisms,  we  destroy  a  disproportionate  number 
of  boys,  so  that  the  natural  balance  of  the  sexes  is  in- 
verted. Unlike  ancient  societies  we  largely  practice 
male  infanticide.  Can  the  reader  believe  that  there  is 
any  permanent  and  final  means  of  arresting  this  wast- 
age of  child-life,  with  its  singular  and  far-reaching 
consequences, —  other  than  the  elevation  of  parenthood, 
on  the  principles  which  race-culture  enjoins,  even 
wholly  apart  from  the  question  of  the  selection  of 
parents  ?  We  shall  not  succeed  in  keeping  all  the  chil- 
dren alive  (with  a  trivial  number  of  exceptions), 
thereby  abolishing  the  superfluous  woman  by  keeping 
alive  the  boy  who  should  have  grown  up  to  be  her  part- 
ner, until  we  greatly  reduce  the  birth-rate;  as  it  must 
and  will  be  reduced  when  the  ideal  of  race-culture  is 


342      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

realized,  and  no  child  comes  into  the  world  that  is  not 
already  loved  and  desired  in  anticipation. 

EUGENICS  AND  CRUELTY  TO  CHILDREN. —  This  ideal, 
also,  offers  us  in  its  realization  the  only  complete  rem- 
edy for  the  present  ghastly  cruelty  under  which  so 
many  children  suffer  even  in  Great  Britain,  even  in  the 
twentieth  century.  Is  the  reader  aware  that  the 
National  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Children  inquired  into  the  ill-treatment  or  cruel  neg- 
lect of  115,000  children  in  the  year  beginning  April 
ist,  1906?  It  has  been  reasonably  and  carefully  esti- 
mated that  "  over  half  a  million  children  are  involved 
in  the  total  of  the  wastage  of  child-life  and  the  torture 
and  neglect  of  child-life  in  a  single  year."  Surely  Mr. 
G.  R.  Sims,  to  whom  I  would  offer  a  hearty  tribute  for 
his  recent  services  to  childhood,  is  justified  in  saying, 
"  Against  the  guilt  of  race  suicide  our  men  of  science 
are  everywhere  preaching  their  sermons  to-day.  It  is 
against  the  guilt  of  race  murder  that  the  cry  of  the 
children  should  ring  through  the  land."  As  regards 
race  suicide  and  the  men  of  science,  I  am  not  so  sure 
as  to  the  assertion.  But  the  truth  of  the  second  sen- 
tence quoted  is  as  indisputable  as  it  is  horrible. 

Now  no  legislation  conceivable  will  wholly  cure  this 
evil  nor  avert  its  consequences.  At  bottom  it  depends 
upon  human  nature,  and  you  can  cure  it  only  by  curing 
the  defect  of  human  nature.  This,  in  general,  is  of 
course  beyond  the  immediate  powers  of  man,  but  evi- 
dently we  should  gain  the  same  end  if  only  we  could 
confine  the  advent  of  children  to  those  parents  who 
desired  them  —  that  is  to  say,  those  in  whom  human 
nature  displayed  the  first,  if  not  indeed  almost  the  only, 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      343 

requisite  for  the  happiness  of  childhood.  To  this  most 
beneficent  and  wholly  moral  end  we  shall  come,  not- 
withstanding the  blind  and  pitiable  guidance  of  most  of 
our  accredited  moral  teachers  to-day.  By  no  other 
means  than  the  realization  of  the  ideal  defined,  that 
every  new  baby  shall  be  loved  and  desired  in  anticipa- 
tion—  an  ideal  which  is  perfectly  practicable  —  can 
the  black  stain  of  child  murder  and  child  torture  and 
child  neglect  be  removed  from  our  civilization. 

RUSKIN  AND  RACE-CULTURE. —  The  name  of  Rus- 
kin,  perhaps,  would  not  occur  to  the  reader  as  likely  to 
afford  support  to  the  fair  hopes  of  the  eugenist.  Con- 
sider then,  these  words  from  Time  and  Tide:  — •• 

"  You  leave  your  marriages  to  be  settled  by  supply  and  de- 
mand, instead  of  wholesome  law.  And  thus,  among  your 
youths  and  maidens,  the  improvident,  incontinent,  selfish,  and 
foolish  ones  marry,  whether  you  will  or  not;  and  beget  families 
of  children  necessarily  inheritors  in  a  great  degree  of  these 
parental  dispositions;  and  for  whom,  supposing  they  had  the 
best  dispositions  in  the  world,  you  have  thus  provided,  by 
way  of  educators,  the  foolishest  fathers  and  mothers  you  could 
find;  (the  only  rational  sentence  in  their  letters,  usually,  is 
the  invariable  one,  in  which  they  declare  themselves  'incapable 
of  providing  for  their  children's  education').  On  the  other 
hand,  whosoever  is  wise,  patient,  unselfish,  and  pure  among 
your  youth,  you  keep  maid  or  bachelor;  wasting  their  best  days 
of  natural  life  in  painful  sacrifice,  forbidding  them  their  best 
help  and  best  reward,  and  carefully  excluding  their  prudence 
and  tenderness  from  any  offices  of  parental  duty.  Is  not  this 
a  beatific  and  beautifully  sagacious  system  for  a  Celestial  Em- 
pire, such  as  that  of  these  British  Isles?" 

Apart  from  the  point  as  to  wholesome  law  rather 
than  the  education  of  opinion  as  the  eugenic  means,  the 
foregoing  passage  must  win  the  assent  and  respect  of 
every  eugenist.  It  indicates  the  promise  of  race-cul- 


344     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ture  as  it  appeared  to  John  Ruskin.  The  passage  has 
been  quoted  in  full,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  ordinary 
thoughtful  reader  but  for  that  of  the  professional 
literary  man  who,  in  this  remarkable  age,  so  far  as  I 
can  judge,  reads  nothing  but  what  he  writes,  and  thus 
qualifies  himself  for  dismissing  Spencer  or  Darwin 
or  Galton  in  any  casual  phrase.1 

RACE-CULTURE  AND  HUMAN  VARIETY. —  Now  let 
us  turn  to  another  question.  Let  it  be  asserted  most 
emphatically  that,  if  there  is  anything  in  the  world 
which  eugenics  or  race-culture  does  not  promise  or 
desire,  it  is  the  production  of  a  uniform  type  of  man. 
This  delusion,  for  which  there  has  never  been  any  war- 
rant at  all,  possesses  many  of  the  critics  of  eugenics, 
and  they  have  made  pretty  play  with  it,  just  as  they  do 
with  their  other  delusions.  Let  us  note  one  or  two 
facts  which  bear  upon  this  most  undesirable  ideal. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  unattainable  because  of  the 
existence  of  what  we  call  variation.  No  apparatus 
conceivable  would  suffice  to  eliminate  from  every  gen- 
eration those  who  varied  from  the  accepted  type. 

In  the  second  place,  this  uniformity  is  supremely 
undesirable  from  the  purely  evolutionary  point  of  view, 
because  its  attainment  would  mean  the  arrest  of  all 
progress.  All  organic  evolution,  as  we  know,  depends 
upon  the  struggle  between  creatures  possessing  various 
variations  and  the  consequent  selection  of  those  varia- 
tions which  constitute  their  possessors  best  adapted  or 
fitted  to  the  particular  environment.  If  there  is  no 
variation  there  can  be  no  evolution.  To  aim  at  the 
suppression  of  variation,  therefore,  on  supposed  eu- 
genic grounds  (which  would  be  involved  in  aiming 

1  Meanwhile  condemning  Ruskin,  whom  he  professes  to  adore. 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      345 

at  any  uniform  type  of  mankind)  would  be  to  aim  at 
destroying  the  necessary  condition  of  all  racial  prog- 
ress. The  mere  fact  that  all  the  critics  of  race- 
culture  attribute  to  evolutionists,  of  all  people,  the 
desire  to  suppress  variation,  is  a  pathognomonic  symp- 
tom of  their  critical  quality. 

And,  of  course,  quite  independently  of  the  evolu- 
tionary function  of  variation  —  though  this  is  cardi- 
nal and  must  never  be  forgotten  by  the  politician  of 
any  school,  since  what  we  call  individuality  is  variation 
on  the  human  plane  —  the  value  of  variation  in  ordi- 
nary life  is  wholly  incalculable.  It  is  not  merely  that,, 
as  Mr.  Galton  says,  "  There  are  a  vast  number  of  con- 
flicting ideals,  of  alternative  characters,  of  incompati- 
ble civilizations;  but  they  are  wanted  to  give  fullness 
and  interest  to  life.  Society  would  be  very  dull  if 
every  man  resembled  the  highly  estimable  Marcus 
Aurelius  or  Adam  Bede."  The  question  is  not  merely 
as  to  the  interest  of  life.  Much  more  important  is  the 
fact  that  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a  world.  What  is 
the  development  of  society  but  the  result  of  the  psych- 
ological division  of  labor  in  the  social  organism  ?  And 
how  could  such  division  of  labor  be  carried  out  if  we 
had  not  various  types  of  laborers?  What  would  be 
the  good  of  science  if  there  were  no  poetry  or  music  to 
live  for?  How  would  poetry  and  music  help  us  if  we 
had  not  men  of  science  to  protect  our  shores  from 
plague?  Obviously  the  existence  of  men  of  most  vari- 
ous types  is  a  necessity  for  any  highly  organized  so- 
ciety. Even  if  eugenics  were  capable  —  as  it  is  not 
—  of  producing  a  complete  and  balanced  type,  fit  up 
to  a  point  to  turn  out  a  satisfactory  poem,  a  satisfac- 


346      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

tory  symphony  or  a  satisfactory  sofa,  the  utmost  could 
not  be  expected  of  such  a  man  in  any  of  these  direc- 
tions. In  a  word,  as  long  as  their  activities  are  not 
anti-social,  men  cannot  be  of  too  various  types.  We 
require  mystic  and  mathematician,  poet  and  patholo- 
gist. Only,  we  want  good  specimens  of  each.  "  The 
aim  of  eugenics,"  says  Mr.  Galton,  "  is  to  represent 
each  class  or  sect  by  its  best  specimens;  that  done,  to 
leave  them  to  work  out  their  common  civilization  in 
their  own  way.  .  .  .  Special  aptitudes  would  be 
assessed  highly  by  those  who  possessed  them,  as  the 
artistic  faculties  by  artists,  fearlessness  of  inquiry  and 
veracity  by  scientists,  religious  absorption  by  mystics, 
and  so  on.  There  would  be  self-sacrificers,  self- tor- 
mentors, and  other  exceptional  idealists."  But  at 
least  it  is  better  to  have  good  rather  than  bad  speci- 
mens of  any  kind,  whatever  that  kind  may  be.  Mr. 
Galton  thinks  that  all  except  cranks  would  agree  as 
to  including  health,  energy,  ability,  manliness  and 
courteous  disposition  amongst  qualities  uniformly  de- 
sirable—  alike  in  poet  and  pathologist.  We  should 
desire  also  uniformity  as  to  the  absence  of  the  anti- 
social proclivities  of  the  born  criminal.  So  much  uni- 
formity being  granted,  let  us  have  with  it  the  utmost 
conceivable  variety, —  more,  indeed,  than  most  of  us 
can  conceive. 

This  point,  of  course,  is  cardinal  from  the  point  of 
view  of  practice.  No  progress  could  be  made  with 
eugenics,  it  would  be  impossible  even  to  form  a  Eu- 
genics Education  Society,  if  each  of  us  were  to  regard 
the  particular  type  he  belongs  to  as  the  ideal,  and  were 
to  seek  merely  to  obtain  the  best  specimens  of  that 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      347 

type.  The  doctrine  that  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a 
world  —  a  doctrine  very  hard  for  youth  to  learn,  yet 
unconsciously  learnt  by  all  who  are  capable  of  learn- 
ing at  all  —  must  be  regarded  as  cardinal  truth  for  the 
eugenist.  All  he  asks  for,  all  he  is  wise  in  seeking,  is 
good  specimens  rather  than  bad.  Poets  certainly,  but 
not  poetasters;  jesters  certainly,  but  not  clever  fools.1 

TIME  AND  ITS  TREASURE. —  Taking  the  modern 
estimates  of  the  physicists,  we  are  assured  that  the 
total  period  of  past  human  existence  is  very  brief  com- 
pared with  what  may  reasonably  be  predicted. 
Granted,  then,  practically  unlimited  time,  what  inher- 
ent limits  are  there  to  the  upward  development  of  man 
as  a  moral  and  intellectual  being?  Shall  we  answer 
this  question  by  a  study  of  the  nature  of  matter? 
Plainly  not.  Shall  we  answer  it  by  a  study  of  the 
nature  of  mind  ?  Surely  not,  for  the  study  of  existing 
mind  cannot  inform  us  as  to  what  mind  might  be. 
One  source  of  guidance  alone  we  have,  and  this  is  the 
amazing  contrast  which  exists  between  the  mind  of 
man  at  its  highest,  and  mind  in  its  humblest  animal 
forms:  or  shall  we  say  even  between  the  highest  and 
lowest  manifestations  of  mind  within  the  human 
species  ?  The  measureless  height  of  the  ascent  thus  in- 
dicated offers  us  no  warrant  for  the  conclusion  that,  as 
we  stand  on  the  heights  of  our  life,  our  "  glimpse  of  a 
height  that  is  higher  "  is  only  an  hallucination.  On 
-the  contrary. 

There  is  no  warrant  whatever  for  supposing  that  the 
forces  which  have  brought  us  thus  far  are  yet  ex- 
hausted: they  have  their  origin  in  the  inexhaustible. 
Who,  gazing  on  the  earth  of  a  hundred  million  years 

1Who  stand  Truth  on  her  head,  and  then  make  street-boy 
gestures  at  her. 


348      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ago,  could  have  predicted  life  —  could  have  recognized, 
in  the  forces  then  at  work  and  the  matter  in  which 
they  were  displayed,  the  promise  and  potency  of  all 
terrestrial  life?  Who,  contemplating  life  at  a  much 
later  stage,  even  later  mammalian,  could  have  seen  in 
the  simian  the  prophecy  of  man?  Who,  examining 
the  earliest  nervous  ganglia,  could  have  foreseen  the 
human  cerebrum?  The  fact  that  we  can  imagine 
nothing  higher  than  ourselves,  that  we  make  even  our 
gods  in  our  own  image,  offers  no  warrant  for  suppos- 
ing that  nothing  higher  will  ever  be.  What  ape  could 
have  predicted  man,  what  reptile  the  bird,  what  amoeba 
the  bee  ?  "  There  are  many  events  in  the  womb  of 
time  which  will  be  delivered  "  and  the  fairest  of  her 
sons  and  daughters  are  yet  to  be. 

But  even  grant,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  the 
intelligence  of  a  Newton,  the  musical  faculty  of  a  Bach, 
the  moral  nature  of  any  good  mother  anywhere,  repre- 
sent the  utmost  limits  of  which  the  evolution  of  the 
psychical  is  capable.  There  is  every  reason  to  deny 
this,  but  let  us  for  the  moment  assume  it  true.  There 
still  remains  the  thought  of  Wordsworth,  "  What  one 
is,  why  may  not  millions  be  ?  " —  a  thought  to  which 
Spencer  has  also  given  utterance.  What  is  shown 
possible  for  human  nature  here  and  there,  he  says,  is 
conceivable  for  human  nature  at  large.  It  is  possible 
for  a  human  being,  whilst  still  remaining  human,  to  be 
a  Shakespeare  or  a  St.  Francis:  these  things  are  thus 
demonstrably  within  the  possibilities  of  human  nature. 
It  is  therefore  at  the  least  conceivable  that,  in  the 
course  of  almost  infinite  time  (even  assuming,  say, 
that  intelligence  must  ever  be  limited,  as  even  New- 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE     349 

ton's  intelligence  was  limited), —  some  such  capacities 
as  his  may  be  common  property  amongst  men  of  the 
scientific  type;  and  so  with  other  types.  We  may  an- 
swer Wordsworth  that  there  is  no  bar  thrown  by  Na- 
ture in  the  way  of  such  a  hope. 

WHAT  is  POSSIBLE. —  This,  of  course,  is  specula- 
tion and  of  no  immediate  value.  I  would  merely  re- 
mind the  reader  that  the  doctrine  of  optimism,  as 
regards  the  future  of  mankind,  which  the  principles  of 
race-culture  assume  and  which  they  desire  to  justify, 
was  definitely  shared  by  the  great  pioneers  to  whom 
we  owe  our  understanding  of  those  principles.  Not- 
withstanding grave  nervous  disorder,  such  as  makes 
pessimists  of  most  men,  both  Darwin  and  Spencer  were 
compelled  by  their  study  of  Nature  to  this  rational 
optimism  as  regards  man's  future.  The  doctrine  of 
organic  evolution,  and  of  the  age-long  ascent  of  man 
through  the  selection  of  the  fittest  (who  have,  on  the 
whole,  been  the  best)  for  parenthood,  is  one  not  of 
despair  but  of  hope.  Exactly  half  a  century  ago  it 
struck  horror  into  the  minds  of  our  predecessors. 
Man,  then,  is  only  an  erected  ape,  they  thought  —  as 
if  any  historical  doctrine,  however  true,  could  shorten 
the  dizzy  distance  to  which  man  has  climbed  since  he 
was  simian:  and  man  being  an  ape,  they  thought  his 
high  dreams  palpably  vain.  But  the  measure  of  the 
accomplished  hints  at  the  measure  of  the  possible,  and 
the  value  of  the  historical  facts  lies  not  in  themselves, 
all  facts  as  such  being  as  dead  as  are  the  individual 
atoms  of  the  living  body,  but  in  the  principles  which 
grow  out  of  them.  It  is  of  no  importance  as  such  that 
man  has  simian  ancestors;  it  is  of  immeasurable  im- 


350     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

portance  that  he  should  learn  by  what  processes  he  has 
become  human,  and  by  what  indeed,  they  became 
simian  —  which  would  have  been  a  proud  adjective  for 
its  own  day.  The  principles  of  organic  progress  mat- 
ter for  us  because  they  are  the  principles  of  race-cul- 
ture, the  only  sure  means  of  human  progress.  Our 
looking  backwards  does  not  turn  us  into  pillars  of  salt, 
but  teaches  us  that  the  best  is  yet  to  be,  and  how  alone 
it  is  to  be  attained. 

Elsewhere  the  optimistic  argument  of  Wordsworth 
is  quoted.  Hear  also  John  Ruskin :  — 

"There  is  as  yet  no  ascertained  limit  to  the  nobleness  of 
person  and  mind  which  the  human  creature  may  attain,  by 
persevering  observance  of  the  laws  of  God  respecting  its  birth 
and  training."1 

and  Herbert  Spencer:  — 

"What  now  characterizes  the  exceptionally  high  may  be 
expected  eventually  to  characterize  all.  For  that  which  the 
best  human  nature  is  capable  of,  is  within  the  reach  of  human 
nature  at  large."2 

and  Francis  Galton :  — 

"There  is  nothing  either  in  the  history  of  domestic  animals 
or  in  that  of  evolution  to  make  us  doubt  that  a  race  of  sane 
men  may  be  formed,  who  shall  be  as  much  superior,  mentally 
and  morally,  to  the  modern  European,  as  the  modern  European 
is  to  the  lowest  of  the  Negro  races. 

"  It  is  earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  inquiries  will  be  increasingly 
directed  into  historical  facts,  with  the  view  of  estimating  the 
possible  effects  of  reasonable  political  action  in  the  future,  in 
gradually  raising  the  present  miserably  low  standard  of  the 


1  Munera  Pulveris,  par.  6. 

2  The  Data  of  Ethics,  par.  97. 


THE  PROMISE  OF  RACE  CULTURE      351 

human  race  to  one  in  which  the  Utopias  in  the  dreamland  of 
philanthropists  may  become  practical  possibilities."1 

CONCLUSION  —  EUGENICS  AND  RELIGION. —  In  an 
early  chapter  it  was  attempted  to  show  that  eugenics  is 
not  merely  moral,  but  is  of  the  very  heart  of  morality. 
We  saw  that  it  involves  taking  no  life,  that,  rather 
it  desires  to  make  philanthropy  more  philanthropic, 
that,  at  any  rate  so  far  as  this  eugenist  is  con- 
cerned, it  recognizes  and  bows  to  the  supreme  law 
of  love :  and  claims  to  serve  that  law,  and  the  ideal  of 
social  morality,  which  is  the  making  of  human  worth. 
Eugenics  may  or  may  not  be  practicable,  it  may  or 
may  not  be  based  upon  natural  truth,  but  it  is  assuredly 
moral :  though  I,  for  one,  would  proclaim  eternal  war 
between  this  real  morality  and  the  damnable  sham 
which  approves  the  unbridled  transmission  of  the  most 
hideous  diseases,  rotting  body  and  soul,  in  the  interests 
of  good. 

And  if  religion,  whatever  its  origin  and  the  more 
questionable  chapters  in  its  past,  be  now  "  morality 
touched  with  emotion,"  I  claim  that  eugenics  is  reli- 
gious, is  and  will  ever  be  a  religion.  Elsewhere  2  I 
have  attempted  to  show  that  religion  has  survived  and 
will  survive  because  of  its  survival-value  —  its  services 
to  the  life  of  the  societies  wherein  it  flourishes.  The 
religion  of  the  future,  it  was  sought  to  argue,  will  be 
that  which  "  best  serves  Nature's  unswerving  desire  — 
fullness  of  life."  The  Founder  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion said,  "  I  am  come  that  ye  might  have  life,  and 
that  ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly."  It  is  higher 

1  Hereditary  Genius,  Prefatory   Chapter  to  Edition  of   1902, 
pp.  x.  and  xxvii. 

2  "  The  Survival-Value  of  Religion,"  Fortnightly  Review,  April, 


352     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

and  more  abundant  life  that  is  the  eugenic  ideal. 
Progress  I  define  as  the  emergence  and  increasing 
dominance  of  mind.  Of  progress,  thus  conceived, 
man  is  the  highest  fruit  hitherto.  He  is  also  its  ap- 
pointed agent  and  eugenics  is  his  instrument. 

To  this  end  he  must  use  all  the  powers  which  have 
blossomed  in  him  from  the  dust.  He  must  claim  Art : 
and  indeed  in  Wagner's  great  music-drama,  at  the 
moment  when  the  prophetic  Briinnhilde  tells  Sieglinde 
who  has  just  lost  her  mate  that  she,  the  expectant 
mother,  may  look  for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  and 
the  life  of  the  world  to  come  in  the  child  Siegfried; 
and  when  the  heroic  theme  is  pronounced  for  the  first 
time  and  followed  by  that  which  signifies  redemption 
by  love:  then,  I  think,  the  eugenist  may  thrill  not 
merely  to  the  music,  nor  the  humanity  of  the  story, 
but  to  the  spiritual  and  scientific  truth  which  it  sym- 
bolizes. 

If  the  struggle  towards  individual  perfection  be  re- 
ligious, so,  assuredly,  is  the  struggle,  less  egoistic  in- 
deed, towards  racial  perfection.  If  the  historic  mean- 
ing and  purport  of  religion  are  as  I  conceive  them,  and 
if  its  future  evolution  may  thence  be  inferred,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  in  the  prophecy  that  in  ages  to  come 
those  high  aspirations  and  spiritual  visions  which 
astronomy  has  dishoused  from  amongst  the  stars,  and 
which,  at  their  best,  were  ever  selfish,  will  find  a  place 
on  this  human  earth  of  ours.  If  we  have  transferred 
our  hopes  from  heaven  to  earth  and  from  ourselves  to 
our  children,  they  are  not  less  religious.  And  they 
that  shall  be  of  us  shall  build  up  the  old  waste  places; 
for  we  shall  raise  up  the  foundations  of  many  gen- 
erations. 

We  feel  the  high  tradition  of  the  world  3 

And  leave  our  spirits  on  our  children's  Breasts. 


APPENDIX  A 

CONCERNING   BOOKS   TO   READ 

THE  preceding  pages  are  of  course  only  tentative,  pre- 
liminary and  introductory.  I  have  merely  tried  to 
make  a  beginning.  No  better  purpose  can  be  achieved 
than  that  the  reader  should  proceed  to  study  the  sub- 
ject for  himself.  A  few  pages  may  therefore  be  de- 
voted to  the  names  of  some  of  the  books  which  will  be 
found  useful.  This  is  in  no  sense  a  complete  bibliog- 
raphy, nor  even  a  tithe  of  such  a  bibliography.  But 
the  reader  who  makes  a  beginning  with  the  books  here 
named,  or  even  with  a  well-chosen  half  dozen  of  them, 
will  hereafter  need  no  one  to  tell  him  that  the  culture 
of  the  human  race  on  scientific  principles  will  be  the 
supreme  science  of  all  the  future,  the  supreme  goal  of 
all  statesmen,  the  object  and  the  final  judge  of  all  leg- 
islation. 

Where  it  is  thought  that  useful  remarks  can  be  made 
they  will  be  made,  but  neither  their  presence  nor  ab- 
sence nor  their  length  is  to  be  taken  as  any  index  to 
the  writer's  opinion  of  the  relative  value  of  the  works 
in  question. 

Heredity.  (The  Progressive  Science  Series,  John 
Murray,  1908.)  By  PROFESSOR  J.  A.  THOMSON, 
M.A. 

This  is  the  most  recent  and  most  valuable  for  gen- 

353 


i/ 


354     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

eral  purposes  of  all  books  on  the  subject  of  heredity. 
No  layman  should  express  opinions  on  heredity  or 
eugenics  until  he  has  read  it,  for  it  is  extremely  im- 
probable that  they  will  be  valuable.  Professor  Thom- 
son covers  the  whole  ground  with  extreme  lucidity  and 
care  and  impartiality.  The  book  is  readable,  nay 
more,  fascinating  from  end  to  end,  and  it  is  liberally 
and  usefully  illustrated.  It  is  the  first  general  trea- 
tise on  heredity  which  leads  consciously,  yet  as  of 
necessity,  towards  eugenics  as  the  crown  and  goal  to 
the  whole  study,  and  in  this  respect  it  undoubtedly 
marks  an  epoch. 

The  Methods  and  Scope  of  Genetics.  (Cambridge 
University  Press,  1908.)  By  W.  BATESON,  M.A., 
F.R.S. 

This  is  the  inaugural  lecture,  destined,  I  have  little 
doubt,  to  become  historic,  which  was  delivered  by 
Professor  Bateson  on  his  appointment  to  the  new  Dar- 
win Chair  of  Biology  at  Cambridge.  It  is  purposely 
included  here  for  very  good  reasons.  The  reader  who 
begins  his  serious  study  of  heredity  with  Professor 
Thomson's  work,  must  be  informed  that  though  the 
author  gives  an  interesting  account  of  Mendelism,  he 
is  not  a  Mendelian,  and  neither  his  account  of  Men- 
delism nor  his  estimate  of  it  is  at  all  adequate  for  the 
present  day.  In  truth  there  is  the  study  of  heredity 
before  Mendelism  and  after,  and  though  eugenics  owes 
its  modern  origin  to  the  founder  of  the  school  of  bio- 
metrics, and  though  among  his  followers  there  are  to 
be  found  many  who  decry  and  oppose  the  Mendelians, 
it  is  for  the  eugenist  of  single  purpose  to  take  the  truth 
wherever  it  is  to  be  found.  It  is  now  idle  to  deny 


APPENDIX  355 

either  the  general  truth  or  the  stupendous  promise  of 
Mendelism.  Many  vital  phenomena  besides  hered- 
ity are  studied  by  the  statistical  method,  and  are  put 
down  by  it  to  heredity.  The  Mendelians  take  seeds 
of  known  origin,  and  plant  them  and  note  the  result. 
They  carry  out  experimental  breeding  not  only 
amongst  plants  but  amongst  the  higher  animals,  in- 
cluding mammals  who,  in  all  essentials  of  structure 
and  function,  are  one  with  ourselves.  It  is  not  possi- 
ble, I  believe,  to  over-estimate  the  supreme  importance 
of  Mendelian  inquiry  for  eugenics.  Eugenics  is 
founded  upon  heredity,  and  Genetics,  which  is  Pro- 
fessor Bateson's  name  for  the  physiology  of  heredity 
and  variation,  is  now  working  at  the  very  heart  of 
those  natural  phenomena  upon  which  eugenics  depends. 
This  lecture  of  Professor  Bateson's  is  by  far  the  best 
introduction  to  Mendelism  that  exists,  besides  being 
the  most  recent  and  the  most  authoritative  possible. 
With  the  lucidity  of  the  born  teacher  (whose  faculty, 
I  have  no  doubt,  is  a  Mendelian  unit,  not  always  in- 
herited by  the  born  observer)  the  author  explains  the 
essence  of  Mendelism.  The  usual  expositor  has  not 
proceeded  far  upon  his  way  before  he  is  encumbering 
himself  and  the  learner  with  the  phenomena  of  domi- 
nance and  recessiveness,  which  are  not  cardinal  and 
are  highly  involved.  Professor  Bateson  makes  no 
allusion  to  them.  But  he  gives  an  account  of  Mendel- 
ism which  it  is  impossible  to  put  down  without  finish- 
ing, and  which  is  elementary  in  the  highest  sense  of 
the  word.  In  the  latter  pages  the  author  preaches 
eugenics  with  a  vigor  and  conviction  not  unworthy  of 
notice  as  coming  from  the  leader  of  a  school  which  is 


356      PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

utterly  opposed  in  principle  and  in  methods,  if  not  in 
results,  to  the  school  of  biometrics  founded  by  the 
founder  of  eugenics.  I  insist  upon  this  because  there 
is  a  half-instructed  ignorance  abroad  which  has  heard 
the  name  of  Mendel,  and  seeks  thereby  to  discredit 
Darwin  and  natural  selection,  Mr.  Galton  and  eugenics. 
Hear  Professor  Bateson :  — 

"  If  there  are  societies  which  refuse  to  apply  the  new 
knowledge,  the  fault  will  not  lie  with  Genetics.  I  think 
it  needs  but  little  observation  of  the  newer  civilizations 
to  foresee  that  they  will  apply  every  scrap  of  scientific 
knowledge  which  will  help  them,  or  seems  to  help  them 
in  the  struggle,  and  I  am  good  enough  selectionist  to 
know  that  in  that  day  the  fate  of  the  recalcitrant  com- 
munities is  sealed." 

Hereditary  Genius,  An  Inquiry  into  its  Laws  and 
Consequences.  (Second  Edition.  Macmillan,  1892. 
Out  of  print. )  By  FRANCIS  GALTON. 

This  is  the  classical  and  pioneer  inquiry,  far  beyond 
my  praise  or  appraisement.  The  main  text  is  not  long, 
is  easily  read  and  is  extremely  interesting.  The  reader 
should  acquaint  himself  also  with  Mr.  Constable's  re- 
cent criticism,  Poverty  and  Hereditary  Genius. 

A  Study  of  British  Genius.  (Hurst  &  Blackett, 
1904.)  By  HAVELOCK  ELLIS. 

This  is  an  extremely  interesting  book,  which  should 
be  read  in  association  with  the  foregoing,  to  which  it 
is  a  criticism  and  supplement.  The  greater  part  of 
the  volume  is  concerned  with  the  study  of  genius  from 
the  point  of  view  of  heredity  —  in  terms  of  nationality 
and  race,  and  of  individual  parentage.  Very  great 


APPENDIX  357 

labor  and  scholarship  have  been  expended  to  very  high 
purpose  in  this  work. 

Inquiries  into  Human  Faculty.  (Macmillan,  1883. 
Out  of  print.)  By  FRANCIS  GALTON. 

This  is  the  next  in  order  of  Mr.  Galton's  works, 
Hereditary  Genius  dating  from  1869.  It  has  recently 
been  reprinted  in  Dent's  "  Everyman's  Library,"  and 
can  thus  be  purchased  for  one  shilling. 

Natural  Inheritance.  (Macmillan,  1889.)  By 
FRANCIS  GALTON.  (Out  of  print.) 

Memories  of  my  Life.  (Methuen  &  Co.,  1908.) 
By  FRANCIS  GALTON. 

This  is  Mr.  Galton's  latest  book,  and  apart  from  its 
personal  fascination  must  be  read  by  the  serious 
eugenist  if  only  on  account  of  its  last  five  chapters, 
and  especially  the  last  two,  which  deal  with  Heredity 
and  Race  Improvement.  What  could  be  more  inter- 
esting and  significant,  for  instance,  than  to  find  Mr. 
Galton  in  1908  saying  of  himself  in  1865,  "I  was 
too  much  disposed  to  think  of  marriage  under  some 
regulation,  and  not  enough  of  the  effects  of  self-inter- 
est and  of  social  and  religious  sentiment."  Mr.  Galton 
comments  on  the  wrong  headedness  of  objectors  to 
eugenics.  I  fancy,  however,  that  the  familiar  misrep- 
resentations will  soon  cease  to  be  possible.  The  whole 
of  this  brief  last  chapter  must  be  carefully  read  and 
studied.  At  least  I  must  quote  the  following  para- 
graph :  — 

"  What  I  desire  is  that  the  importance  of  eugenic 
marriages  should  be  reckoned  at  its  just  value,  neither 
too  high  nor  too  low,  and  that  eugenics  should  form 


\ 


358     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

one  of  the  many  considerations  by  which  marriages 
are  promoted  or  hindered,  as  they  are  by  social  posi- 
tion, adequate  fortune,  and  similarity  of  creed.  I  can 
believe  hereafter  that  it  will  be  felt  as  derogatory  to  a 
person  of  exceptionally  good  stock  to  marry  into  an 
.  inferior  one  as  it  is  for  a  person  of  high  Austrian  rank 
to  marry  one  who  has  not  sixteen  heraldic  quarterings. 
I  also  hope  that  social  recognition  of  an  appropriate 
kind  will  be  given  to  healthy,  capable,  and  large  fami- 
lies, and  that  social  influence  will  be  exerted  towards 
the  encouragement  of  eugenic  marriages." 

This  volume,  a  model  for  all  future  autobiographers, 
ends  with  the  following  splendid  statement  of  the 
eugenic  creed :  — 

"  A  true  philanthropist  concerns  himself  not  only 
with  society  as  a  whole,  but  also  with  as  many  of  the 
individuals  who  compose  it  as  the  range  of  his  affec- 
tions can  include.  If  a  man  devotes  himself  solely  to 
the  good  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  his  tastes  must  be 
impersonal  and  his  conclusions  so  far  heartless,  deserv- 
ing the  ill  title  of  '  dismal '  with  which  Carlyle  labeled 
statistics.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  attends  only  to 
certain  individuals  in  whom  he  happens  to  take  an 
interest,  he  becomes  guided  by  favoritism  and  is  ob- 
livious of  the  rights  of  others  and  of  the  futurity  of 
the  race.  Charity  refers  to  the  individual;  States- 
manship to  the  nation ;  Eugenics  cares  for  both. 

"It  is  known  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  huge 
stream  of  British  charity  furthers  by  indirect  and  un- 
suspected ways  the  production  of  the  Unfit ;  it  is  most 
desirable  that  money  and  other  attention  bestowed  on 
harmful  forms  of  charity  should  be  diverted  to  the 


APPENDIX  359 

production  and  well-being  of  the  Fit.  For  clearness 
of  explanation  we  may  divide  newly  married  couples 
into  three  classes,  with  respect  to  the  probable  civic 
worth  of  their  offspring.  There  would  be  a  small  class 
of  '  desirables/  a  large  class  of  '  passables,'  of  whom 
nothing  more  will  be  said  here,  and  a  small  class  of 
'  undesirables.'  It  would  clearly  be  advantageous  to 
the  country  if  social  and  moral  support  as  well  as 
timely  material  help  were  extended  to  the  desirables, 
and  not  monopolized  as  it  is  now  apt  to  be  by  the 
undesirables. 

"  I  take  eugenics  very  seriously,  feeling  that  its  prin- 
ciples ought  to  become  one  of  the  dominant  motives  in 
a  civilized  nation,  much  as  if  they  were  one  of  its  reli- 
gious tenets.  I  have  often  expressed  myself  in  this 
sense,  and  will  conclude  this  book  by  briefly  reiterating 
my  views. 

"  Individuals  appear  to  me  as  partial  detachments 
from  an  infinite  ocean  of  Being,  and  this  world  as  a 
stage  on  which  Evolution  takes  place,  principally  hith- 
erto by  means  of  Natural  Selection,  which  achieves 
the  good  of  the  whole  with  scant  regard  to  that  of  the 
individual. 

"  Man  is  gifted  with  pity  and  other  kindly  feelings ; 
he  has  also  the  power  of  preventing  many  kinds  of 
suffering.  I  conceive  it  to  fall  well  within  his  province 
to  replace  Natural  Selection  by  other  processes  that  are 
more  merciful  and  not  less  effective. 

"  This  is  precisely  the  aim  of  eugenics.  Its  first  ob- 
ject is  to  check  the  birth-rate  of  the  Unfit,  instead  of 
allowing  them  to  come  into  being,  though  doomed  in 
large  numbers  to  perish  prematurely.  The  second 


360    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

object  is  the  improvement  of  the  race  by  furthering 
the  productivity  of  the  Fit  by  early  marriages  and 
healthful  rearing  of  their  children.  Natural  Selection 
rests  upon  excessive  production  and  wholesale  destruc- 
tion; Eugenics  on  bringing  no  more  individuals  into 
the  world  than  can  be  properly  cared  for,  and  those 
only  of  the  best  stock." 

Heredity  and  Selection  in  Sociology.  (A.  &  C. 
Black,  1907.)  By  GEORGE  CHATTERTON-HILL. 

This  is  a  useful  and  interesting  work,  the  nature  of 
which  is  well  indicated  by  its  title.  It  contains  many 
purely  eugenic  chapters,  and  cannot  be  ignored  by  the 
student. 

The  Germ-plasm,  A  Theory  of  Heredity.  (The 
Contemporary  Science  Series,  Walter  Scott,  1893.) 
By  AUGUST  WEISMANN. 

This  is  Weismann's  great  work.  It  should  be 
studied  by  politicians  and  others  who  still  interpret  all 
social  phenomena  in  terms  of  Lamarckian  theory,  and 
also  by  modern  writers  who  are  so  much  more  Weis- 
mannian  than  Weismann. 

The  Evolution  Theory.  (Two  volumes.  London, 
1904.  Translated  by  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and  M.  R. 
Thomson.)  By  AUGUST  WEISMANN. 

The  Principles  of  Heredity.  (Chapman  &  Hall, 
1905.)  By  G.  ARCHDALL  REID. 

This  is  a  very  interesting  and  extremely  Weismann- 
ian  book  which  contains  the  most  recent  statement  of 
the  author's  remarkable  inquiries  into  the  influence  of 
disease  as  a  factor  of  human  selection. 

Variation  in  Animals  and  Plants.     (The  Interna- 


APPENDIX  361 

tional  Scientific  Series,  Kegan  Paul,  1903.)     By  H. 
M.  VERNON. 

Variation,  Heredity  and  Evolution.  (Murray, 
1906.)  By  R.  H.  LOCK. 

The  Origin  of  Species.  (Murray,  1869.  Last 
(sixth)  edition.  Reprinted  1901.)  By  CHARLES 
DARWIN. 

The  Descent  of  Man.  (Murray,  1871.  Second 
edition,  1874.  Reprinted  1906.)  By  CHARLES  DAR- 
WIN. 

These  classics  now  cost  only  half-a-crown  apiece. 

The  beginner  should  read  The  Descent  of  Man  first, 
I  think.  Some  of  the  earlier  chapters  are  of  the  ut- 
most eugenic  value,  and  would  be  found  immensely 
interesting  by  modern  lecturers  on  decadence,  and  the 
like. 

Darwinism  To-day.  (London,  George  Bell;  New 
York,  Henry  Holt,  1907.)  By  VERNON  L.  KELLOGG. 

An  interesting  and  scholarly  recent  criticism,  con- 
taining much  matter  strictly  relevant  to  eugenics.  /  > 

The     Evolution     of    Sex.     (The    .Contemporary      y 
Science  Series,  Walter  Scott.     Revised  edition,  1901. 
Originally  published  in  1899,)     By  PATRICK  GEDDES 
and  J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON. 

A  famous  book,  yet  to  be  discovered  by  most  "  au- 
thorities "  on  the  Woman  Question. 

A  History  of  Matrimonial  Institutions.  (Univer- 
sity of  Chicago  Press  &  Fisher  Unwin,  1904.)  By 
G.  E.  HOWARD. 

This  is  a  three-volume  treatise,  extremely  compre- 
hensive, and  especially  valuable  as  a  guide  to  the  lit- 


\ 


362     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

erature  of  the  subject.  Only  the  professional  student 
can  be  expected  to  read  it  from  cover  to  cover,  but  it 
is  valuable  for  purposes  of  reference. 

The  History  of  Human  Marriage.  (Macmillan.) 
By  E.  WESTERMARCK. 

This  rightly  celebrated  and  epoch-making  work 
demonstrates  in  especial  the  survival-value  of  monog- 
amy, and  its  historical  dominance  as  a  marriage  form. 
\  The  Evolution  of  Marriage.  (The  Contemporary 
Science  Series,  Walter  Scott.)  By  PROFESSOR  LE- 

TOURNEAU. 

The  Principles  of  Population.     By  T.  R.  MALTHUS. 

The  substance  of  this  may  be  conveniently  read  in 
the  extracts  published  in  the  Economic  Classics  by 
Macmillan  (1905). 

The  Principles  of  Biology.     By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

The  last  section  "  The  Laws  of  Multiplication " 
must  be  read  as  the  expression  of  the  missing  half  of 
the  truth  discovered  by  Malthus.  It  is  tiresome, 
nearly  half  a  century  after  Spencer's  enunciation  of 
his  law,  to  have  to  read  the  remarks  of  some  modern 
writers  who  continue  to  assume  that  Malthus  ex- 
pressed the  whole  truth. 

The  Republic  of  Plato. 

Apart  from  the  lines  of  Theognis  quoted  by  Darwin 
in  The  Descent  of  Man,  which  are  some  two  cen- 
turies older  than  Plato,  the  fifth  book  of  the  Republic 
is  the  earliest  discussion  in  literature  of  the  idea  of 
eugenics,  and  utterly  wild  though  we  may  consider 
most  of  the  proposals  of  Plato  —  or  Socrates  —  to  be, 
these  early  thinkers  are  yet  more  modern  and  more 
scientific  and  more  fundamental  than  all  their  succes- 


APPENDIX  363 

sors,  even  including  our  modern  Utopia  makers  who 
have  come  after  Darwin,  in  recognizing  that  it  is  the 
quality  of  the  citizen  which  will  make  a  Utopia  pos- 
sible. The  following  quotation  will  suffice  to  show 
that  after  more  than  two  thousand  years  we  can  still 
learn  from  the  fundamental  idea  of  Plato's  fifth  chap- 
ter:— 

"  It  is  plain,  then,  that  after  this  we  must  make  marriages  as 
much  as  possible  sacred ;  but  the  most  advantageous  should  be 
most  sacred.  By  all  means.  How  then  shall  they  be  most  ad- 
vantageous? Tell  me  that,  Glauco,  for  I  see  in  your  houses 
dogs  of  chase,  and  a  great  many  excellent  birds.  Have  you 
then  indeed  ever  attended  at  all,  in  any  respect,  to  their  mar- 
riages, and  the  propagation  of  their  species?  How?  said  he. 
First  of  all,  that  among  these,  although  they  be  excellent 
themselves,  are  there  not  some  who  are  most  excellent?  There 
are.  Whether  then  do  you  breed  from  all  of  them  alike?  or 
are  you  careful  to  breed  chiefly  from  the  best?  From  the  best. 
But  how?  From  the  youngest  or  from  the  oldest,  or  from 
those  who  are  most  in  their  prime?  From  those  in  their  prime. 
And  if  the  breed  be  not  of  this  kind,  you  reckon  that  the  race 
of  birds  and  dogs  greatly  degenerates.  I  reckon  so,  replied  he. 
And  what  think  you  as  to  horses,  said  I,  and  other  animals? 
is  the  case  any  otherwise  with  respect  to  these?  That,  said 
he,  were  absurd." 

* 

Plato  proposed  to  destroy  the  family,  and  to  "  prac- 
tice every  art  that  no  mother  should  know  her  own 
child."  He  also  approved  of  infanticide.  Neverthe- 
less, this  fifth  book  of  the  Republic  is  interesting  and 
valuable  reading,  and  it  is  especially  well  to  note  that 
this  pioneer  of  Utopianism  and  Socialism  possessed 
the  idea  which  almost  all  living  Socialists,  except  Dr. 
A.  R.  Wallace  and  Professors  Forel  and  Pearson,  lack, 
that  we  must  first  make  the  Utopian,  and  Utopia  will 
follow. 

The  Family.  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1906.)  By 
ELSIE  CLEWS  PARSONS. 


364     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

This  recent,  scholarly  and  lucid  book,  of  which  any 
living  man  might  well  be  proud,  may  follow  the  read- 
ing of  the  utterly  unconcerned  and  taken- for-granted 
fashion  in  which  Socrates  and  Plato  proposed  to  de- 
stroy the  family.  Lecture  VIIL,  on  "  Sexual  Choice," 
is  brief,  but  the  references  following  it  are  extremely 
valuable  and  complete.  It  is  evident  that  one  of  the 
books  which  will  have  to  be  written  on  eugenics  in  the 
near  future  must  deal  with  the  whole  question  of  mar- 
riage and  human  selection  in  its  historical  and  contem- 
porary aspects. 

"  The  Possible  Improvement  of  the  Human  Breed 
under  Existing  Conditions  of  Law  and  Sentiment." 
Nature,  1901,  p.  659;  Smithsonian  Report,  Washing- 
ton, 1901,  p.  523.  By  FRANCIS  GALTON. 

This  was  the  Huxley  Lecture  of  the  Anthropologi- 
cal Institute  in  1901,  and  the  contemporary  interest  in 
eugenics  may  be  said  to  date  from  it. 

"  Eugenics,  its  Definition,  Scope  and  Aims.  (So- 
ciological Papers,  Macmillan,  1904.)  By  FRANCIS 
GALTON. 

This  remarkable  lecture  constituted  a  further  intro- 
duction of  the  subject,  and  it  is  somewhat  of  the  nature 
of  an  impertinence  for  the  professional  jester,  who  is 
not  acquainted  with  a  line  of  it,  to  dismiss  eugenics 
with  a  phrase  as  if  this  lecture  had  never  been  written 
or  were  unobtainable.  Mr.  Galton  there  defined  eu- 
genics as  "  the  science  which  deals  with  all  influences 
that  improve  the  inborn  qualities  of  a  race.  .  .  ." 
The  definition  given  in  the  Century  Dictionary  is 
unauthoritative,  incorrect,  and  misses  the  entire 
point. 


APPENDIX  365 

An  extremely  valuable  discussion  follows  this  lec- 
ture, and  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  student  to 
acquaint  himself  with  the  whole  of  these  pages  (45- 

99)- 

Restrictions  in  Marriages:  Studies  in  National  Eu- 
genics: Eugenics  as  a  Factor  in  Religion.  By  FRAN- 
CIS GALTON. 

These  memoirs  communicated  to  the  Sociological 
Society  in  1905,  and  published  together  with  the  sub- 
sequent discussions  in  Sociological  Papers  (1905). 
The  three  memoirs  are  also  published  separately  under 
one  cover,  and  I  believe  the  few  remaining  copies  can 
be  obtained  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Eugenics  Edu- 
cation Society. 

Probability,  the  Foundation  of  Eugenics.  The 
Herbert  Spencer  Lecture  of  1907.  By  FRANCIS  GAL- 
TON. 

This  lecture  is  published  by  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford. It  contains  a  very  brief  historical  outline  of  the 
recent  progress  of  eugenic  inquiry  and  a  simple  dis- 
cussion of  the  mathematical  method  of  studying  he- 
redity. It  must,  of  course,  be  read  by  every  serious 
student. 

National  Life  from  the  Standpoint  of  Science.  (A. 
&  C.  Black,  1905.)  By  KARL  PEARSON. 

This  is  a  reprint  of  a  lecture  delivered  by  Professor 
Pearson  in  1900,  together  with  some  other  valuable 
contributions  of  his  to  the  subject.  There  is  scarcely 
a  better  introduction  to  eugenics. 

The  Scope  and  Importance  to  the  State  of  the  Sci- 
ence of  National  Eugenics,  The  Robert  Boyle  Lee- 


366    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

ture  1907.  (Dulau  &  Co.,  Second  Edition,  1809.) 
By  KARL  PEARSON. 

This  fine  lecture  should  be  carefully  read.  It  gives 
some  index  to  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  work 
done  by  Prof.  Pearson  and  his  followers  since  the 
Francis  Galton  Eugenics  Laboratory  was  founded. 

Population  and  Progress.  (Chapman  &  Hall, 
1907.)  By  MONTAGUE  CRACKANTHORPE,  K.C. 

Though  only  published  recently,  part  of  this  book 
goes  back  far.  The  first  chapter  is  indeed  a  reprint 
of  a  eugenic  article  published  in  the  Fortnightly  Re- 
view as  far  back  as  1872.  Some  of  us  may  perhaps 
be  inclined  to  forget  that  more  than  a  generation  ago 
Mr.  Crackanthorpe  had  grasped  the  great  truths  which 
we  are  now  trying  to  spread,  and  had  courageously 
expressed  them  in  the  face  of  ignorance  and  prejudice 
even  greater  than  to-day.  This  is  unquestionably  a 
book  which  every  student  must  read  but  the  press  gen- 
erally, with  some  notable  exceptions,  have  fought 
rather  shy  of  it.  It  was  sent  to  the  present  writer  at 
his  request  from  a  leading  morning  paper  which  trusts 
him,  and  he  wrote  a  column  on  it,  most  careful  in  dic- 
tion and  moderate  in  opinion,  which  was,  nevertheless, 
not  printed.  One  of  the  leading  medical  papers  de- 
voted a  long  article  to  the  book,  written  on  the  gen- 
eral principle  that  it  is  right  for  a  medical  paper  to 
differ  from  any  non-medical  person  who  approaches 
the  closed  neighborhood  of  medical  inquiry.  Another 
leading  medical  paper  considered  Mr.  Crackanthorpe's 
"  ideal  "  to  be  "  beyond  present  accomplishment,"  and 
feared  it  must  have  "many  generations  of  probation 
before  it  could  hope  to  enter  the  sphere  of  practical 


APPENDIX  367 

politics."  We  venture  to  say  that  Population  and 
Progress,  dealing,  as  it  does,  with  a  subject  that  really 
matters,  contains  more  fundamental  practical  politics 
—  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word  —  than  has  been 
discussed  in  most  of  our  current  newspapers  since  they 
were  first  established. 

Race-Culture  or  Race  Suicide.  (Walter  Scott, 
1906.)  By  R.  R.  RENTOUL. 

This  is  a  second  and  enlarged  edition  of  a  remark- 
able pamphlet  published  by  Dr.  Rentoul  in  1903  under 
the  title  Proposed  Sterilisation  of  Certain  Mental  and 
Physical  Degenerates.  An  Appeal  to  Asylum  Mana- 
gers and  Others.  Dr.  Rentoul's  own  description  of 
this  pamphlet  is  as  follows :  —  "  In  it  I  called  attention 
to  the  large  and  increasing  number  of  the  insane  in  the 
United  Kingdom;  to  our  disgraceful  system  of  child- 
marriages  ;  to  the  growing  suicide  rate ;  to  our  disgust- 
ing system  of  inducing  certain  mentally  and  physically 
diseased  persons  to  marry;  and  to  a  slight  operation 
which  I  was  the  first  to  propose  as  a  means  of  checking 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  the  insane,  and  in  pre- 
venting innocent  offspring  from  being  cursed  by  some 
parental  blemish." 

Education.  (Originally  published  in  1861 ;  half- 
crown  edition  with  the  author's  latest  corrections,  Wil- 
liams &  Norgate,  1906.)  By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

This  is  the  classic  which  marks  an  epoch  in  the  per- 
sonal development  in  every  one  who  reads  it,  and 
which  made  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  education:  the 
book  was  probably  of  more  service  to  woman,  owing 
to  its  liberation  of  girlhood,  than  any  other  of  its  cen- 
tury. 


368     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

The  Study  of  Sociology.  (International  Scientific 
Series.  Originally  published  in  1873.  Twentieth 
edition,  1903,  Kegan  Paul.)  By  HERBERT  SPENCER. 

This  is,  of  course,  the  introduction  to  sociology, 
written  for  that  purpose  by  a  master,  and  in  every  re- 
spect a  masterpiece.  It  contains  many  eugenic  refer- 
ences and  arguments.  As  far  as  the  eugenic  education 
of  the  adult  is  concerned,  this  is  rightly  the  prelim- 
inary work. 

Besides  The  Evolution  of  Sex  and  Mrs.  Parson's 
book  on  The  Family,  there  are  many  others  relevant 
to  the  question  of  woman  and  Eugenics,  of  which  one 
or  two  may  be  noted  here. 

f  Sex  and  Society,  Studies  in  the  Social  Psychology 
of  Sex.  (University  of  Chicago  Press  and  T.  Fisher 
Unwin,  1907.)  By  W.  I.  THOMAS. 

This  is  a  very  readable  and  recent  work,  and  for 
the  general  reader  much  the  most  suitable  of  any  that 
I  know. 

Man  and  Woman.  (Contemporary  Science  Series, 
Walter  Scott.  Second  Edition.)  By  HAVELOCK 
ELLIS. 

This  is  a  very  clear  and  readable  book. 

Youth  —  its    Education,    Regimen    and    Hygiet 
(Sydney  Appleton,  1907.)     By  STANLEY  HALL. 

This  is  a  new  and  abbreviated  version  of  Professor 
Stanley  Hall's  two  well-known  volumes  on  Adoles- 
cence, published  in  1904.  For  the  general  reader  this 
much  smaller  work  is  very  suitable,  and  especial  atten- 
tion may  be  directed  to  Chapter  XI.  "  The  Education 
of  Girls." 


APPENDIX  369 

It  would  have  been  presumptuous  and  absurd  to 
attempt,  in  the  course  of  a  merely  introductory  volume, 
to  deal,  by  anything  more  than  allusion  to  its  existence, 
with  the  great  question  of  human  parenthood  in  re- 
lation to  race.  Most  urgently  this  question,  of  course, 
concerns  the  negro  problem  in  America.  The  student 
who  has  to  trust  entirely  to  second-hand  knowledge 
had  best  be  silent.  Lest,  however,  the  reader 
should  imagine  that  the  older  doctrines  of  race  can 
be  accepted  without  reserve,  he  will  do  well  to  study 
very  carefully  the  latter  part  of  Dr.  Archdall  Reid's 
book,  already  referred  to,  and,  with  extreme  caution, 
the  following :  — 

Race  Prejudice.  (Constable,  1906.)  By  JEAN 
FINOT. 

This  book  most  of  us  must  believe  to  be  extreme, 
but  it  should  be  read :  it  bears  on  what  may  be  called 
international  eugenics,  and  the  whole  question  of  in- 
ter-racial marriage. 

On  matters  of  transmissible  disease  and  racial  poi- 
sons there  is  much  literature.  Only  one  or  two  books 
can  be  referred  to  here. 

The  Disease  of  Society:  The  Vice  and  Crime  Prob- 
lem. (Lippincott,  1904.)  By  G.  F.  LYDSTON. 

This,  of  course,  is  not  a  pleasant  book,  and  it  is  open 
to  much  criticism  in  many  respects,  but  it  is  well  worth 
reading,  especially  in  association  with  Dr.  Rentoul's 
work. 

Malaria  —  A  Neglected  Factor  in  the  History  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  (Macmillan,  1907.)  By  W.  H'. 
S.  JONES,  with  an  introduction  by  RONALD  Ross. 


\ 


370     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

This  is  a  recent  historical  study  and  may  be  a 
substantial  contribution  to  the  study  of  Decadence. 

Alcoholism.  (Nisbet,  1906.)  By  W.  C.  SULLI- 
VAN. 

This  little  book  of  Dr.  Sullivan's  contains  a  useful 
and  scrupulously  moderate  chapter  on  the  relation  of 
alcohol  to  human  degeneration. 

The  Drink  Problem.  (Methuen,  1907.)  By 
Fourteen  Medical  Authorities. 

The  Children  of  the  Nation.  (Methuen,  1906.) 
By  SIR  JOHN  GORST. 

Infant  Mortality.  (Methuen,  1906.)  By  GEORGE 
NEWMAN. 

The  Hygiene  of  Mind.  (Methuen,  1906.)  By  T. 
S.  CLOUSTON. 

Diseases  of  Occupation.  (Methuen,  1908.)  By 
SIR  T.  OLIVER. 

The  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis.  (Methuen,  1908.) 
[By  A.  NEWSHOLME. 

These  volumes,  in  my  New  Library  of  Medicine, 
all  deal  in  part  with  questions  of  racial  poisoning  and 
racial  hygiene. 

Alcoholism  —  A  Study  in  Heredity.  (Fisher  Un- 
win,  1901.)  By  ARCHDALL  REID. 

Alcohol  and  the  Human  Body.  (Macmillan,  1907.) 
By  SIR  VICTOR  HORSLEY  and  MARY  D.  STURGE. 

Hygiene  of  Nerves  and  Mind.  (The  Progressive 
Science  Series,  John  Murray,  1907.)  By  AUGUST 
FOREL. 

Inebriety  —  Its  Causation  and  Control.  (The  sec- 
ond Norman  Kerr  Memorial  Lecture,  published' in  the 


APPENDIX  37i 

British  Journal  of  Inebriety,  January,  1908.)     By  R.      / 
WELSH  BRANTHWAITE.  / 

Reports  of  the  Inspector  under  the  Inebriates  Acts. 
Especially  those  for  the  years  1904,  1905,  1906. 

The  Cry  of  the  Children:  The  Black  Stain.     (Jar-    / 
rold,  1907.)     By  G.  R.  SIMS. 

The  above  are  especially  recommended  to  politi- 
cians. Sooner  or  later,  as  never  yet,  knowledge  will 
have  to  be  applied  to  the  drink  question  as  it  bears 
upon  the  quality  of  the  race.  The  knowledge  exists, 
and  is  not  difficult  to  acquire  or  understand.  The 
references  given  are  quite  sufficient  to  enable  any  one 
of  mediocre  intelligence  to  frame  a  bill  dealing  with  al- 
cohol which  would  be  worth  all  its  predecessors  put 
together,  and  would  arouse  far  less  opposition  than  any 
one  of  them. 

Reports  of  the  National  Conference  on  Infantile 
Mortality,  1906  and  1908  (P.  S.  King  &  Co.). 

In  the  1906  report  note  especially  Dr.  Ballantyne's 
paper  on  the  unborn  infant,  and  in  the  1908  report, 
Miss  Alice  Ravenhill's  paper  on  the  education  of  girls. 

It  must  be  repeated  that  the  foregoing  names  are 
merely  noted  as  including,  perhaps,  the  greater  num- 
ber of  the  books  with  which  the  serious  beginner  would 
do  well  to  make  a  start.  That  is  all.  It  would  be 
both  unfair  and  unwise,  however,  to  omit  any  mention 
of  at  least  three  wonderful  little  books  of  John  Rus- 
kin's :  Unto  this  Last,  Munera  Pulveris,  and  Time  and 
Tide,  which  add  to  their  great  qualities  of  soul  and 
style  some  of  the  most  forcible  and  wisest  things  that 
have  ever  been  written  on  race-culture  and  its  abso- 


372    PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

lutely  fundamental  relation  to  morality,  patriotism  and 
true  economics. 

If  the  reader  desires  the  name  of  only  one  book,  that 
is  certainly  The  Sexual  Question  (Rebman,  1908),  by 
Professor  AUGUST  FOREL.  This  has  no  rival  any- 
where, and  cannot  be  overpraised. 


APPENDIX  B 

THE  .EUGENICS   EDUCATION   SOCIETY 

THERE  has  lately  been  founded  a  society,  the  effective 
activity  of  which  has  been  alluded  to  in  preceding 
pages.  One  of  the  purposes  of  the  present  volume  is 
to  gain  adherents  for  this  Society  and  perhaps,  even 
better  still,  to  encourage  readers  in  great  provincial 
centers,  for  instance,  to  form  eugenic  bodies  for  them- 
selves. Sir  James  Crichton-Browne  accepted  the  pres- 
idency of  the  Society  for  its  first  year,  and  the  cause  of 
the  helpless  inebriate  and  the  future  is  much  indebted 
to  him  for  his  help  in  that  matter.1  Lately,  Mr.  Fran- 
cis Galton  consented  to  become  our  Honorary  Pres- 
ident, and  while  we  have  the  advice  and  help  and 
direction  of  the  august  founder  of  eugenics,  it  may 
fairly  be  assumed  that  for  responsible  and  authorita- 
tive statement  and  action,  it  will  be  well  to  consult  the 
Eugenics  Education  Society  rather  than  the  amateur 
and  irresponsible  eugenist  whom  this  new  cause,  like 
other  new  causes,  will  doubtless  call  into  being. 

The  following  is  reprinted  from  the  Society's 
papers :  — 

The  Eugenics  Education  Society  proposes,  so  far  as  its  means 
allow : 

i.  To  arrange  for  Lectures  on  the  facts  and  laws  of  hered- 
ity, on  the  circumstances  attending  the  rise  and  decline  of  ruling 
races  and  families,  on  the  good  and  bad  racial  effects  of  va- 
rious laws  and  usages,  and  on  other  kindred  subjects. 

1  Mr.  Montague  Crackenthorpe,  K.C.,  is  the  President  for  1909. 

373 


374     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

2.  To  popularize  the  results  of  researches,  such  as  are  being 
pursued   at   the    Francis    Galton    Eugenics    Laboratory    of   the 
University  of  London  and  elsewhere. 

3.  To  ensure  that  the  young  shall  be  made  acquainted  with 
the  principles  of  Eugenics,  since  a  knowledge  of  them  may  be 
expected  to  supply  an  important  aid  towards  the  formation  of 
character. 

4.  To  intervene  whenever  a  proposed  administrative  act  ap- 
pears likely  to  impair  the  racial  qualities  of  the  nation,  and  to 
advocate  such  measures  as  would  improve  these  qualities. 

5.  To  form  an  appropriate  Library,  and  to  issue  publications. 
Offices  and  Library  —  6,  York  BuildingsH  Adelphi,  W.C. 
Hours  —  ii  a.m.  to  i  p.m.,  and  by  appointment. 

For  further  information  and  for  programs  of  lectures  and 
meetings  apply  to  the  Hon.  Secretary  at  above  address. 

The  Honorary  President  of  the  Society  has  lately 
written  for  it  the  following  statement  which  is  pref- 
aced by  his  revised  definition  of  eugenics  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"Eugenics  is  the  study  of  agencies  under  social  control  that 
may  improve  or  impair  the  racial  qualities  of  future  generations 
either  physically  or  mentally." 

The  fact  that  the  laws  of  heredity  apply  to  man  equally  with 
the  lower  animals  and  plants,  and  that  the  mental  functions  are 
subject  to  the  same  laws  of  heredity  as  the  physical  ones,  has 
yet  to  be  taken  to  heart  by  the  public. 

The  salutary  effects  of  natural  selection  in  preventing  the 
degeneracy  of  a  race  are  so  largely  interfered  with,  and  some- 
times even  inverted,  by  civilization,  that  another  form  of  pre- 
vention is  peremptorily  demanded. 

If  we  apply  the  general  word  degenerate  to  the  insane,  to  the 
imbecile,  to  the  habitual  criminal,  and  to  those  who  are  naturally 
liable  to  some  of  the  more  serious  diseases,  it  is  found  that  a 
"degenerate"  is  no  less  fertile  than  a  normal  person,  appar- 
ently a  little  more  so,  and  that  such  persons  frequently  marry. 

Each  married  degenerate  produces  on  the  average  one  child 
who  is  as  degenerate  as  himself  or  herself,  and  others  in  whom 
the  taint  is  latent,  but  liable  to  appear  in  a  succeeding  generation. 
The  taint  of  degeneracy  in  our  population  is  now  alarmingly 


APPENDIX  375 

great  and  threatens  to  increase  indefinitely  under  the  present 
conditions. 

Probably  one  of  the  first  efforts  in  practical  Eugenics  will  be 
to  restrict  the  propagation  of  children  by  the  notoriously  Unfit, 
whose  marriages  are  now  unhindered,  if  not  sometimes  fos- 
tered by  mistaken  kindliness. 

Efforts  have  also  to  be  made  in  the  opposite  direction,  namely, 
in  creating  social  agencies  that  shall  promote  the  propagation 
of  the  Fit,  as  for  instance  by  facilitating  employment  to  mar- 
ried persons  of  good  stock,  and  providing  their  families  when 
poor  with  better  housing  and  nurture  than  they  could  other- 
wise obtain. 

The  power  of  public  opinion  being  enormously  great,  we  may 
rest  assured  that  after  the  importance  of  Eugenics  shall  have 
become  generally  recognized,  many  social  influences  will  be 
brought  to  bear,  and  numerous  customs  will  establish  them- 
selves that  shall  further  Eugenic  conduct  with  a  gentle  yet  al- 
most irresistible  force. 

We  ask  for  your  name  and  your  help  in  the  most  radical  and 
hopeful  of  campaigns  —  one  which  appeals  alike  to  the  patriot 
and  the  moralist,  the  man  of  science  and  the  lover  of  children. 
The  Society  has  already  done  practical  work  in  drawing  effective 
attention  to  the  need  for  rational  and  humane  treatment  of 
inebriety,  with  reference  to  the  Eugenic  ideal;  but  this  is  only 
one  of  a  thousand  multifarious  needs.  Every  new  member 
adds  strength  and  support  to  our  cause  —  the  cause  of  the  fu- 
ture. 

The  Eugenics  Review  comprises,  amongst  other  things: 

I. —  Articles  by  responsible  writers. 

2. —  Editorial  Notes  upon  such  of  the  topics  of  the  day  as 
illustrate  Eugenic  teaching,  and  demand  Eugenic  comment. 

3.—  Notices  of  recent  Books  which  bear  upon  Eugenics. 

4.— Official  records  of  the  Work  of  the  Society. 

The  aim  of  the  Review  is  to  make  known  the  results  of  all 
seriously  conducted  Eugenic  investigation  without  bias  in  favor 
of  any  particular  school.  Its  range  includes  — 

Biology  —  in  so  far  as  it  is  concerned  with  Heredity  and 
Selection. 

Anthropology  — in  so  far  as  it  throws  light  on  questions 
of  race  and  the  institution  of  Marriage. 

Politics  — in  so  far  as  it  bears  on  Parenthood  in  its  relation 
to  Civic  Worth. 


376     PARENTHOOD  AND  RACE  CULTURE 

Ethics  —  in  so  far  as  it  promotes  ideals  that  lead  to  the  im- 
provement of  racial  quality. 

Religion  —  in  so  far  as  it  strengthens  and  sanctifies  the  sense 
of  Eugenic  duty. 

A  Copy  of  the  Review  is  sent  post  free  to  all  Life  Mem- 
bers of  the  Society,  and  to  all  Annual  Subscribers  of  One 
Guinea.  For  other  persons,  the  Subscription  is  45.  6d.  a  year. 
Single  Copies  may  be  purchased  at  is  net,  or  post  free, 
is.  2d. 

The  Review  is  published  at  the  Offices  of  the  Society,  6, 
York  Buildings,  Adelphi,  London,  and  may  be  ordered  of  any 
Bookseller. 

FRANCIS  GALTON. 

The  Eugenics  Education  Society  exists  to  uphold 
the  ideal  of  Parenthood  as  the  highest  and  most  re- 
sponsible of  human  powers ;  to  proclaim  that  the  racial 
instinct  is  therefore  supremely  sacred,  and  its  exercise, 
through  marriage,  for  the  service  of  the  future,  the 
loftiest  of  all  privileges.  It  stands  "  for  a  transfigured 
sentiment  of  parenthood  which  regards  with  solicitude 
not  child  and  grandchild  only,  but  the  generations  to 
come  hereafter  —  fathers  of  the  future  creating  and 
providing  for  the  remote  children."  That  which  too 
many  schools  of  thought  and  practice  have  derided  or 
defiled  it  seeks  to  elevate  and  ennoble.  Parenthood 
on  the  part  of  the  diseased,  the  insane,  the  alcoholic  - 
where  these  conditions  promise  to  be  transmitted  — 
must  be  denounced  as  a  crime  against  the  future.  In 
these  directions  the  Society  stands  for  active  legisla- 
tion, and  for  the  formation  of  that  public  opinion  which 
legislation,  if  it  is  to  be  effective,  must  express.  Par- 
enthood on  the  part  of  the  worthy  must  be  buttressed, 
guided,  and  extolled.  The  Society  stands  for  the  edu- 
cation of  the  young  regarding  the  responsibility  and 
holiness  of  the  racial  function  of  parenthood. 

THE  END 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Ability,    inheritance   of 130 

"  Acquired  characters,"    denned 

127 

Acquired  characters,  Lamarck- 
ian  theory  of  the  transmis- 
sion of  299,  325 

•  progress     302 

,  dangers    of    305 

versus  natural  selec- 
tion    306 

Acquirements,  transmission  of, 
by  the  art  of  writing 300 

-versus  inborn  characters 

US 

Acromegaly     7» 

"Adam    Bede "    345 

"  Adolescence,"  by  Prof.  Stan- 
ley Hall  368 

Alcohol,   a   racial  poison...  237-284 
,  an  agent  of  selection....  237 

and    eugenics    237 

and     heredity 238 

and   human    degeneration.   278 

and  parenthood   277 

,  effects    of,    on   the   racial 

organs     .... 239-241      (note) 

,  elimination  by 237 

,  the    friends    of.. 279 

trade,  the,  and  widows  and 

orphans     281 

"  Alcohol  and  Infancy,"  by  Dr. 
Saleeby  246 

"  Alcohol  and  the  Human 
Body,"  by  Sir  Victor  Hors- 
ley  and  Mary  D.  Sturge. ..  .'370 

Alcoholic    Imperialism    282 

Alcoholism  and  the  London 
County  Council  237 

,  both  a  cause  and  a  symp- 
tom of  degeneracy 249 

,  parental,  its  influence  on 

the  offspring 243 

"  Alcoholism,  a  Chapter  in  So- 
cial Pathology,"  by  Dr.  W. 
C.  Sullivan  243,  278,  369 

"  Alcoholism,  a  Study  in  Hered- 
ity," by  G.  Archdall  Reid...  371 

Ancestral  inheritance,  the  law 
of  xii 

Ancestry  of  men  of  genius....  174 

,  paternal  and  maternal,  of 

equal  importance  174 

Animal  life  and  monogamy 187 

marriage     186 

Animals   and   promiscuity 187 

,  the    higher,    and    monog- 
amy      * 187 


Army,    inferior    intelligence    of 

the,  to  that  of  the  Navy....  112 

"Atavism,"  defined  127 

"  Attic  Nights,  The,"  of  Aulus 

Gellius  3I3-3IS 

Australia,  control  of  drunkards 

in  278 

"  Autobiography"  of  Herbert 

Spencer  66,  174 

"  Avaries,  Les,"  by  Brieux..  293 

Bacteria,    domination   of 107 

,  rate  of  increase  of 183 

Bibliography^  of    eugenics 353 

of    racial    poisons 371 

of  transmissible  diseases..  371 

Biography,  as  a  guide  to  hered- 
ity      174 

,  neglect  of  ancestral  data 

in  174 

"Biology  and  History,"  by  Dr. 
Saleeby  294  (note) 

"  Biology,  The  Principles  of," 
by  Herbert  Spencer 362 

Biometrics,   the   study  of    xi 

Birth-rate,  falling,  eugenic  as- 
pect of  the 12 

in   China    88 

Birth-rate  in  Japan 88 

of   man    81-84 

.statistics    of 83-85 

Births,   ratio  of,  of  the  sexes. .   337 
"  Black   Stain,   The,"   by  G.    R. 

Sims     274,371 

Body,   the   necessity  of   the 61 

,  relation  of,  to  the  mind..     60 

Brains,    breeding    for 62 

Breeding    for    brains 62 

for    energy    75 

for  intelligence. .  .169,   171-174 

for    motherhood     

167,  168 

Celibacy,  non-eugenic  results  of  132 

Census,  the  uselessness  of  the 
8.  108 

"  Century  Dictionary,  The,"  on 
eugenics  364 

Characters,  inborn,  versus  ac- 
quirements    ii 3-1 i S 

Child-birth,  superstition  about 
118 

Children,  eugenics  and  cruelty 
to  342 

,  Society  for  the  Preven- 
tion of  Cruelty  to 342 


377 


378 


INDEX 


"  Children  of  the  Nation,  The," 
by  Sir  John   Gorst  ..........  370 

China,    the   birth-rate    in  .......     88 

-  ,  racial    state    of  ..........   310 

Church,    non-eugenic    action    of 


-.te     .....  ..................   132 

Civic    worth    ................        77 

Civilization,   ideal    ............   133 

Civilisations,  the  decay  of,  294,  295 
Cocaine,  the  racial  influence  of  290 
"  Collectivism,  Individualism 

and,"   by  Dr.    Saleeby  115    (note) 
Colour-blindness,   see   Daltonism 
Conception,  attitude  of  eugenics 

before    and    after  ...........     34 

"Congenital"    defined    ....117-127 

"  Conscientiousness  "      ........   133 

Crime,   eugenics   and  ......  205-206 

-  ,  theories    of    ........  205-206 

—  —,  treatment   of    ...........  206 

Criminality   and   civic   worth...     77 
"Cry    of    the    Children,    The," 

by  G.  R.  Sims  ..........  274,  371 

Daltonism   and   heredity  .......  207 

"  Dark  ages,"  caused  by  the 

celibacy   of   the   fittest  .......   132 

"  Darwinism  To-day,"  by  Ver- 

non    L.    Kellogg  ............  361 

"  Data  of  Ethics,  The,"  by 

Spencer     ..........     350     (note) 

Deaf-mutism,    and    heredity....  201 

Death-rate,  a  low,  the  cause  of 

the   multiplication   of   man  ...     82 

-  ,  influence     of     density     of 
population  on   the  ...........     84 

-  .limitation    of    the  ........     87 

-  ,  statistics    of    the  ........     83 

Decadence,    National    .....  323-329 

"  Decadence,"    by    A.    J.     Bal- 

four     ......................   329 

"  Degeneration,"  defined  28  (note) 
Degeneration,  human,  and  alco- 

hol    ...................  251,278 

-  racial     ..................     57 

"  Descent    of    Man,    The,"    by 

Charles    Darwin  ............. 

....  197,  221,  224,  228,  323,  361 
"  Deterioration,"  defined  29  (note) 
Diminution  of  offspring,  the 

eugenic    value    of  ...........  174 

Disease,    latency    of  ........  ^.  .  .   123 

Diseases,  transmissible,  bibliog- 

raphy of    ..................  370 

"  Diseases  of  Occupation,"  by 

Sir  Thomas  Oliver  247  (note),  370 
"  Diseases  of  Society:  The  Vice 

and      Crime      Problem,"      by 

G.     K.     Lydston  ............  368 

Domestics,  the  politics  of  the 

future    .................   38,   330 

"  Drink  Problem,  The,"  by 

Fourteen  Medical  Authorities  370 
"  Drink  Problem,  The,"  by  Mrs. 

Scharlieb     .................  248 

Drunkard,  influence  of  the,  on 

the    race    .................  279 

—  —  ,  marriage    and    parentage 

Of    the     .  ..............   254,  272 


Drunkard,  the  habitual,  control 
of,  in  various  countries 280 

,  ,  treatment  of,  by  the 

London  County  Council 

43  (note),  254-274 

Drunkenness,  habitual,  impris- 
onment as  a  treatment  for..  252 

,  increase     of 252 

Early  Notification  of  Births 
Act  36 

"  Economic    Classics  "    361 

Education,  age  at  which  to 
begin 143 

• and   heredity    147 

and   inequality    150 

and    race    culture. . . .   137-165 

,  eugenic      150 

for    parenthood 158 

,  higher,    of    woman,    non- 
eugenic    effects    of 106 

— —  in  the  principle  of  selec- 
tion    157 

,  modern,  the  destruction 

of  mind  137 

• ,  sexual,   of  children 159 

T~V°f   Kirls    362 

,  the  limits  of 141 

-,  the  provision  of  an  en- 
vironment    13,  143 

• ,  the  real   functions  of....   156 

"  Education,"  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer   367 

Elephant,    birth-rate    of    the. . . 

82    (note) 

Emigration,     the    eugenic    evils 

of    ix 

,  a  remedy  for  over-pop- 
ulation    94 

Energetic   cost  of  reproduction, 

the     99 

Energy,    breeding    for 75 

,  eugenic    value    of...   337-339 

Environment,  education  the  pro- 
vision of 13,143 

,  effects     of 116,  117 

,  good,     defined     348 

and    heredity    144 

,  of  motherhood,  the. .  321,  322 

Epilepsy,    eugenics   and 204 

Erect  attitude,   the 62 

"  Essential   Factor   of   Progress, 

The,"  by  Dr.  Saleeby 304 

Eugenic  sense,  the  creation  of 

a  166,  167 

Eugenics  and  haemophilia 207 

and    insanity    203 

and    alcohol  ^ 237-284 

and   conception    33 

and    crime ^ 205 

and   cruelty^  to   children . .  342 

and  Daltonism   207 

bibliography  of   353 

defined     vi,  356,  357 

epilepsy   and    204 

feeble-minded,   the,   and..  202 
higher        education         of 

woman,   and    ior 

—  in    Germany    177.  178 


INDEX 


379 


Eugenics,  infant  mortality,  and  23 

,  international  ix 

,  present  influence  of,  on 

marriage  214 

,  Nietzscheanism  and  ....  31 

,  politics  and  135 

,  positive  and  negative....  200 

,  religion  and 351 

,  the  aims  of,  summarised 

319,  359 

,  the  classes  of  society  and  136 

,  the  length  of  marriage 

engagements  and  227-230 

,  the  morality  of 351 

,  tuberculosis  and  206 

,  unemployment  and  340 

woman  and  341 


Eugenics  Education  Society,  the 

257,  265,.  266,  346 

— — • — ,  the  history 

and  objects  of 159 

; — ,  the  Inebriates 

Committee,  and  278 

• ,  the  reform  of 

drunkards  and  279 

"  Eugenics  as  a  Factor  in  Re- 
ligion," by  F.  Galton 357 

'  Eugenics,  Its  Definition, 

Scope,     and    Aims,"     by     F. 

Galton 356 

"  Eugenics,  National,  Studies 

in,  by  F.  Galton 357 

"  Eugenics,  National,  The 

Scope  and   Importance  to  the 

State  of  the  Science  of,"  by 

Karl  Pearson 358 

"  Elugenics,  Probability  the 

Foundation  of,"  by  F.  Galton  357 
"  Eugenics,  The  Obstacles  to," 

by  Dr.  Saleeby 203  (note) 

Evolution  and  progress 54 

,  introduction  of  the  term. 

54  (note) 

"Evolution  of  Marriage,  The," 

by  Prof.  Letourneau 353 

"Evolution  of  Sex,  The,"  by 

Patrick  Geddes  and  J.  Arthur 

Thomson  353 

"  Evolution,  the  Master  Key," 

by  Dr.  Saleeby 169 

"  Evolution  Theory,  The,"  by 

August  Weismann  352 

Examinations,  mental  emetics..  138 


"  Family,  The,"  by  Mrs.  Elsie 
Clews  Parsons  a 355 

Fatherhood,  eugenic,  importance 

of  .-•:.••.%••: I77 

,  individual     ,.  179 

Feeble-minded,  eugenics  and 
the  202 

,  the  London  County  Coun- 
cil and  the 265 

,  the  Royal  Commission  on 

the  249,  280 

«*  Fittest,"    defined    48-49 

France,  effect  of  Napoleonic 
wars  on 329 

— — ,  increase  of  population  in    86 


Francis  Galton  Eugenics  Lab- 
oratory, the 357 

"  French  Revolution,  The,"  by 
Carlyle  294  (note) 

Fulmar  petrel,  the  multiplica- 
tion of  the 83  (note) 

Generation,  the  independence  of 

every 3 

Genesis,    individuation    and....     99 
"  Genetics,     The     Methods    and 
Scope     of,"     by     Prof.     W. 

Bateson 354 

Genius,    infertility   of 99,   104 

,  the  production    of 334 

,  the    transmission    of 335 

,  the     value      of,      to     the 

world    336 

"  Genius,  British,  A  Study  of," 

by    Havelock    Ellis 356 

"  Genius,  Hereditary,"  by  F. 
Galton,  see  Hereditary  Genius 

Germany,    eugenics   in 181 

,  increase      of      population 

in     86-88 

"  Germinal "     denned     126 

Germ-plasm,   immortality   of  the  ,295 
"  Germ-plasm,      A     Theory     of 
Heredity,     The,"    by    August 

^Weismann     241,  360 

Girls,    the   sexual   education    of  368 
Great   Britain,   increase   of  pop- 
ulation   in 85 

Greece,    the    fall    of 301 

Gymnasium  versus  playing 
fields  71 

Haemophilia    and    heredity 207 

Hampstead,     birth-rate     of,     the 

lowest  in   London 88 

"Health,  Strength  and  Hap- 
piness," by  Dr.  Saleeby 

136    (note) 

"  Hereditary  Genius,"  by  F. 
Galton  123,  130,  335,  351,  356-357 

Heredity,    alcohol    and 239 

,  biography  a   guide   to....   174 

-,  Daltonism    and 207 

,  deaf -mutism     and 201 

,  education   and 147 

,  environment     and...   144,  310 

,  haemophilia   and    . . . .  v . .  207 

,  obscured  by  acquired 

characters     114 

• ,  race   culture   and 114 

,  tuberculosis    and    208 

"  Heredity,"    by    Prof.    J.    A. 

Thomson     113,  353 

"Heredity  a\id,  Enviromc 
Forces,"  Dr.  T.  D.  MacDou- 

gal   on    243 

"  Heredity  and  Selection  in  So- 
ciology," by  George  Chatter- 

ton-Hill     360 

"Heredity,  Alcoholism,  A 
Study  in,"  by  G.  Archdall 

Reid    370 

"  Heredity,  The  Germ-Plasm, 
A  Theory  of,"  by  August 
Weismann  360 


INDEX 


"Heredity,  The  Principles  of," 

By    G.    Archdall    Reid 360 

"History,"  defined 294 

"History   of    Human -Marriage, 

The,"    by    E.    Westermarck. .  362 
"  History  of  Matrimonial   Insti- 
tutions,   A,"    by   G.    E.   How- 
ard        361 

"Human    Breed,    The    Possible 
Improvement     of    the,    etc.," 

by    F.    Galton 364 

"  Human       Faculty,       Inq-uiries 

into,"    by    F.     Galton 357 

Humanitarianism,  indiscriminate     31 
Hygiene,    individual    and    racial  29* 

,  school     74 

"  Hygiene    of    Mind,    The,"    by 

T.    S.    Clouston 370 

"  Hygiene       of       Nerves       and 
Mind,"  by  August  Forel  279,  370 

Imperialism,     alcoholic 282 

,  the    old    and    the    new     37-38 

India     as      a     wheat-producing 

country     91 

Individual    versus    race 296 

"  Individualism     and     Collectiv- 
ism,"  by   Dr.    Saleeby  .115    (.note) 

Individuation    and    genesis 101 

Inebriates,    see    Drunkards 

Act,    the 259-262,  266 

,  reports    of    the    in- 
spector   under    371 

• Committee,   the   Report   of 

the     276 

Inebriety,    see    Drunkenness 
"  Inebriety,    Its    Causation    and 
Control,"     by      R.     Welsh 

Branthwaite     370 

Infancy,   helplessness   of  3,    169-172 

,  the    mind    of 142 

,  the,  of  slum  children 116 

"  Infancy,     Alcohol     and,"     by 

Dr.     Saleeby 248 

Infant    mortality 

23,    no,    118,    172,   239,   297,  342 

,  the    1908   conference 

on    359 

ports    of 370 

Infant   mortality  e  in   the    east..     85 

,  eugenics   and  23,   31,   35 

,  first   public    mention 

of     37 

among   the   Jews....   316 

,  polygamy     and 190 

• the    war    against. ...     25 

"  Infant     Mortality,"     by     Dr. 

George     Newman 98,  370 

"Inherent,"     defined 125 

Inheritance,    pecuniary,    non-eu- 
genic   influence    of 116 

• ,  see   Heredity 

"  Inquiries    into     Human     Fac- 
ulty,"   by    F.    Galton 

.105,     146,    336,    357 

Inquisition,   anti-eugenic   effects 
of   the    309 


Insanity,     "  breach     of     prom- 
ise "  and   233 

,  eugenics   and 203 

,  increase     of 204 

Instinct,    plasticity    of 169-171 

Intelligence,  breeding  for 

169,    172.    175 

,  the    creation    of 171 

,  nature     and 45 

"Intensity  of  Life,"   the 103 

"  Janus    in    Modern    Life,"    by 

Prof.    Flinders    Petrie 25 

Japan,    birth-rate    in 88 

,  the  racial  development  of  311 

Jews,  the,  alcohol  and 318 

motherhood    and 317 

.  the    survival    of 315 

"  Kingdom    of   Man,    The,"   by 
Sir   E.    Ray   Lankester  46    (note) 

Lamarckian  theory,  of  heredity, 

the 154-156,  240,327 

of  racial  degeneration 

298,  307 

Lead,  a  racial  poison 286 

"  Leviathan,"  by  Hobbes  121  (note) 
Licensing  Bill  of  1908,  the 

.•  •  •  •  258i  270-272 

Life,  the  continuity  of 2 

London  County  Council,  the, 

alcoholism  and 238 

feeble-minded 


children,  and 263 

,  the  treatment 

of   inebriates   by    

44  (note),  251-273 

Hospital,  gift  to...  12  (note) 

Longevity,  marriage  and 221 

Love,  eugenic  value  of 79 

,  motherhood  and 172-175 

,  survival  value  of 57 

,  the  two  stages  of 214 

"  Making   of   Character,    The," 

by  Prof.   MacCunn: 142 

Malaria,    a    racial    poison 301 

"  Malaria,  A  Neglected  Factor 
in  the  History  of  Greece  and 
Rome,"  by  W.  H.  S.  Jones 

301,    324,    370 

Man,    the    denudation    and    de- 

fencelessness     of 66 

,  the  foundation  of  Empire  304 

,  the    future    of 347 

,  the  latest  product  of  evo- 
lution    62 

,  the    multiplication    of....     80 

"  Man  and  Woman,"  by  Have- 
lock  Ellis  a 368 

Marriage,    animal    186 

,  average    age    at 103 

,  breach  of  promise  of,  and 

race    culture    233 

f f  the  law  of...  234 

,  childless    192 


INDEX 


38i 


Marriage,  contemporary,  eu- 
genic value  of 230 

,  control  of   213,  215 

,  defined    . .   195 

,  engagement    of,    eugenics 

and  the  length  of 229 

,  eugenic    355 

,  ,  preparation   for    ...   164 

,  ,  utility    of.    187-189,  192 

,  happiness  in,   extent  of. .  225 

,  human    187 

,  inter-racial     ix 

,  longevity   and    221 

,  "  mixed  "  games  and  227-228 

,  of  cousins  x,  192 

,  of   the    deaf   and  dumb..  201 

,  present    influence    of,    on 

eugenics    217 

,  procreati9n,  the  para- 
mount function  of 181 

,  selection    for    217,  218 

,  • ».by   woman 224 

,  socialism   and    230 

— — .survival-value    of     187 

systems,       English       and 

French      230 

,  the   ball-room   and...   226—227 

,  the  field   of   choice  in...  226 

,  the   Income   Tax  and....  200 

,  the,    of    inebriates 272 

,  unselfish      . .   164 

"  Marriage,    Human,    The    His- 
tory of,"  by  E.  Westermarck,  362 
"  Marriage,  Restrictions  in,"  by 

F.   Gallon    214,  236,  365 

"  Marriage,  The  Evolution  of," 

by    Prof.     Letourneau 362 

Married  women's  labour 312 

"Mass  versus  mind" 109 

Maternal  care,    development  of,  172 

impressions      129 

Maternalism,  the  principle  of..   194 
Maternity,    see   Motherhood 
"  Matrimonial     Institutions,     A 
History  of,"   by   G.   E.   How- 
ard       361 

"  Memories  of  my  Life,"  by  F. 

Galton   v,  357 

Mendelism    124,    134,340 

"  Methods  and  Scope  of  Genet- 
ics, The,"  by  Prof.  W.  Bate- 
son  . 354 

Mind,    selection   of 59 

,  the   ascent   of. 348 

• ,  the      determinator      o  f 

leadership 66,    67 

• ,  the   master    in   war no 

,  the    relation    of,    to    the 

body    59 

versus  mass    1 09 

muscle     74 

"Mind,    The    Hygiene    of,"    by 

T.    S.    Clouston 370 

"  Mind,      Hygiene     of     Nerves 

and,"  by  August  Forel 370 

Monogamy,    eugenic   value  of. . 

188,   195 

,  survival- value  of    190 

the  ideal  condition 172 


Monogamy,  the  rule  among 

higher  animals  186 

Morality,    survival-value   of....  58 

Morphinomania,  parental,  its  in- 
fluence on  the  offspring 245 

Motherhood     194 

and   love    174 

,  breeding    for 166,  167 

carried    on     by    unskilled 

labour     173 

during     the     decline     of 

Rome    312,   313    (note) 

,  education  for  173 

,  history  and  311 

Motherhood,  Jewish  317 

,  psychical  172,  173 

,  the  elevation  of 36 

,  the  environment  provided 

by 312 

,  the  evolution  of 171 

,  the  safeguarding  of 174 

,  the  subsidisation  of 173 

Mothers,  school  for 173 

Multiplication  of  man,  a  low 

death-rate  the  cause  of 82 

,  the  laws  of 98 

,  the  rate  of........  102 

of    the    unfit 218,  324 

"  Munera    Pulveris,"    by    John 

Ruskin  . ..  350  (note),  371 

Muscle,  right  training  of 70 

,  the    cult    of 68 

versus    Mind    74 

Muscles,   useless    69 

Narcotics,  possible  racial  in- 
fluence of 290 

,  irritant   and   non-irritant.  291 

"National  Life  from  the 
Standpoint  of  Science,"  by 

Karl   Pearson    323,  365 

"  Natural    Inheritance,"    by    F. 

Galton 357 

Natural   selection    39  et  seq. 

and  racial  degenera- 
tion  301 

versus  acquired  prog- 
ress    308 

Nature,   the  cruelty  of 41 

"Nature,"   defined   '125 

"  Nature    of    Man,    The,"    by 

Metchnikoff     103 

Navy,    superior    intelligence    of 

the,  to  that  of  the  Army....   112 
"  Nemesis    of    Nations,    The,"    by 

W.    R.    Paterson 326 

New  Zealand,  control  of  drunk- 
ards in  280 

Nicotine,   racial  influence  of...  291 
Nietzscheanism,    eugenics    and..  31 

Nitrogen,    the   fixation   of 92 

"  Noteworthy    Families,"  130  (note) 
"Nurture,"    defined     125 

"  Obstacles   to    Eugenics,    The," 

by    Dr.    Saleeby 203  (note) 

Opinion,  individual,  power  of . .   158 

,  public,    the    education    of 

16,  17 


382 


INDEX 


Opinion,  the  creation  of 158 

Opium,  possible  racial  influence 

of  291 

"  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel, 

The,"     by     George     Meredith 

128  (note) 

"Origin  of  Species,  The,"  by 

Charles  Darwin  v  (note)  82,  361 
"Origin  of  Vertebrates,  The," 

by  Dr.  W.  H.  .Gaskell.  57  (note) 

Overcrowding1  23,  24 

and  tuberculosis  209 

•  and  unemployment  340 


Parenthood    376 

,  alcohol     and 278,  279 

,  classification      of      society 

for  119  (note) 

,  education    for    x,  158 

,  eugenic   power   of...   230,  231 

of    inebriates 255 

,  selection    for    v,  vi 

,  the  elevation  of 340-342 

,  the   link   of   life 4 

,  the    most    desirable 104 

,  the    rise    of 184 

,  the    sanctity    of 158 

Parents,    selection   of 5 

,  proportion   of,    to   popula- 
tion             5 

Paris,    hospitals    in 286 

Physique,  eugenic  importance  of     79 
Playing   fields    -versus   gymnasia     69 

Politics,  defined    331 

,  domestics  the   future.. 37,  330 

,  eugenics    and    134 

"Politics,"     Aristotle's     191 

Polygamy   and   infant   mortality  190 

,  significance    of    189 

Population,  density  of,  influence 

of  the,  on  the  death  rate 85 

,  increase  of,  and  the  food 

supply     89 

• ,  ,  safe    extent    of....   107 

,  ,  emigration    a    rem- 
edy  for    94 

,  ,  statistics  of 85,  86 

,  quantity  v.  quality  of....    106 

,  starvation   a  controller  of     95 

,  statistics   of,   as    data    for 

prophecy     107,  108 

— — ,  survival-value    of....   103-105 

,  the f  test    of no 

"  Population  and  Progress,"   by 

Montague   Crackanthorpe    . . .  366 
"  Population,       rru-      T>~~~-I~* 

^f  »»    K»,    T 


The      Principles 


of,"  by  T.  R.  Malthus  93-95,  362 
"  Possible  Improvement  of  the 

Human    Breed,    etc.,"    by    F. 

Galton  364 

Posterity,  our  duty  to 1 1 

"Poverty  and  .Hereditary 

Genius,"  by  Constable 356 

Prevention  of  Crimes  Act,  The 

206  (note) 

"  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis 

The,"  by  Dr.  A.  Newsholme  370 
"  Principles  of  Biology,  The," 

by   Herbert    Spencer 98.  362 


"  Principles  of  Heredity,  The," 
by  G.  Archdall  Reid 360 

"  Principles  o  f  Population, 
The,"  by  T.  R.  Malthus,  see 
Population,  Principles  of 

"  Probability,  the  Foundation  of 
Eugenics,  by  F.  Galton....  365 

Progress,  acquired,  see  Ac- 
quired progress 

defined     56,  351 

,  evolution    and    54 

of     achievement,     and    of 

the  race 4 

,  racial  and  acc,*uired 302 

"  Progress,     Popjulation     and," 

by  Montague  Crackanthorpe.  366 
Promiscuity  among  animals....  186 
Public  opinion,  education  of  16,  17 

Quality   versus   quantity 340 

Race,   immortality   of 296 

versus     individual 296 

Race-culture  and  human  variety  344 

,  education    and    137 

,  socialism  and 152 

,  the    promise    of 333 

"  Race-Culture     or     Race     Sui- 
cide,"   by    R.    R.    Rentoul...  36' 

"  Race  Prejudice,"  by  Jean 

Finot 369 

Racial  degeneration  and  natural 

selection  301 

— ,  cause    of    304 

,  the  Lamarckian 

theory  of 298,304 

instinct,    education   of   the  x 

poisons,    the     viii,  285 

,      and    decadence....  300 

,  bibliography    of  369,  370 

"  Racial    poisons,"    introduction 

of    the    term 237 

"  Racial     Hygiene    or    Negative 

Eugenics,"  by  Dr.  Saleeby. .  237 
Racial  senility,  the  fallacy  of..  296 
"Reformatory,"  the  word....  273 
Regression  towards  mediocrity, 

the    law    of. 334 

Religion,    eugenics    and 315 

,  the    survival-value    of....   315 

"  Religion,  Eugenics  as  a  Fac- 
tor in,"  by  F.  Galton 363 

Religious  persecution,  non-eu- 
genic results  of 132,  305 

Reproduction,    the    cost    of,    in 

energy     99 

"  Republic,  The,"  of  Plato  191,  362 
"  Restrictions  in   Marriage,"   by 

F.    Galton    214,    236,  365 

Reversed    selection    306 

,  the     final    cause    of 

racial    decay    305,  308 

,  war   a   cause  of....  329 

"Reversion,"    defined    127 

Rome,    the    decline    of 323 

,  motherhood      during      the 

decline  of    31 1 

Russia,  increase  of  population 
in 86 

as      a      wheat      producing 

country     90,  91 


INDEX 


383 


"  School    hygiene  " 74 

"  Scope  and  Importance  to  the 
State  of  the  Science  of  Na- 
tional Eugenics,  The,"  by 
Karl  Pearson  365 

Selection,    alcohol   an  agent  in.   239 

and    racial    change 301 

by  marriage    219 

for    parentage    v,  vi 

,  natural,    see    Natural     Selec- 
tion 

— —of    mind 59 

of  woman,  for  marriage..  219 

1,  reversed,     see     Reversed     Se- 
lection 

,  sexual   .....77,  220,   227,  234 

,  the  principle  of,  educa- 
tion in  157 

"  Sex  and  Society,"  by  W.  I. 
Thomas  368 

*'  Sex,  The  Evolution  of,"  by 
Patrick  Geddes  and  J.  Arthur 
Thomson  361 

Sexual  education  of  children.. 
1 60,  162 

selection   ...  77,  2215,  227,  234 

"  Sexual  Selection  in  Man,"  by 

Havelock  Ellis  234 

"Sexual  Frage,  Die"  (The 

Sexual  Question),   by  August 

Forel  149,  279,  283,  372 

Siegfried,  the  story  of 352 

"  Social  Psychology,"  by  Dr. 

McDougall  134 

Socialism  and  education...  151-154 

and    marriage     229-230 

and   race-culture    152 

and  selection  for  marriage  225 

Society,     classification    of,     and 

eugenics  135 

,  ,  for  parenthood 

119  (note) 

"Society,  The  Diseases  of,"  by 

G.  F.  Lydston 369 

"  Society,  Sex  and,"  by  W.  I. 

Thomas  368 

"  Sociological  Papers  " 


45. 


(note), 


214     (note),    323,    335,    364,    365 

sociological   Society,   The 318 

"  Sociology,  Hereditary  and 
Selection  in,"  by  G.  Chatter- 
ton-Hill  360 

"  Sociology,  The  Study  of,"  by 
Herbert  Spencer  368 

Soldiers,  mistaken  muscular 
training  of  69 

Spain,    the    racial    condition    of 

„ 309,  3io 

Spontaneous,       denned     249 

Starvation    as    a    controller    of 

population    95 

I ,  extent  of,  in  England     93,  94 

Stepney,  birth-rate  of,  the  high- 
est in  London 88 

Sterilization  of  mental  and 
physical  degenerates  367 

Strength  versus  skill 70 


"  Struggle    for    existence,"    the 

t     ; 46,      94,    323 

Studies  in  National  Euge- 
nics," by  F.  Galton 365 

"  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of 
Sex  " 234 

"  Study  of  British  Genius,  A," 
by  Havelock  Ellis 356 

"  Study  of  Sociology,  The,"  by 
Herbert  Spencer  ..  10,  222,  368 

"  Survival  of  the  fittest,"  the  48,  55 

Survival-value     51 

of    monogamy    57 

of  love   57 

of     population     102,  103 

of    religion 351 

of   the   tape-worm 52 

,  physical    versus    psychical     56 

"  Survival- Value     of     Religion, 

The,"  by  Dr.   Saleeby 351 

Syphilis,    a    racial    poison 292 

"  Syphiology  and  Venereal  Dis- 
eases," by  Dr.  C.  F.  Mar- 
shall   293 

Talent,  the  production  of 336 

Tape-worm,  survival  value  of 
the 52 

Tasmanians,  racial  disappear- 
ance of  the 298 

Taubach,    the   Driftmen  of 67 

Temperance  legislation,  the  fail- 
ure of  273 

"  Time,  and  Tide,"  by  John 

Ruskin  

...109,  150,  294  (note),  343,  371 

Tobacco,  influence  of,  on 
pregnancy  292 

and  the  race. 297,  298 

Tuberculosis,    eugenics    and....  208 

,  heredity  and    209 

,  overcrowding    and 210 

,  racial   extermination    by.. 

302,  303 

"Tuberculosis,  The  Prevention 
of,"  by  A.  Newsholme 370 

Unemployment,    eugenics   and. .  340 

,  overcrowding    and     340 

United  States,  control  of 
drunkards  in  the 280 

,  higher  education  of 

woman  in  the 101 

,  increase  of  popula- 
tion in  the 86 

,  the,  a  wheat  pro- 
ducing country  91,  92 

"  Unto  this  Last,"  by  John 
Ruskin  37,1 

Variation     344 

"  Variation,  Heredity  and  Evo- 
lutipn,"  by  R.  H.  Lock 361 

"  Variations  in  Animals  and 
Plants."  by  H.  M.  Vernon..  360 

Vertebrates,    evolution   of  the. .     63 

Vital  economy,  the  principle  of 

,.,,..,.     19,    22 


384 


INDEX 


War,   a   cause   of   reversed   se- 
lection  329 

• ,  mind   the   master   in  no,  in 

Wealth,    Ruskin's  definition  of.     ig 
"  Westminster     Gazette,     The," 
on     the    population    and    the 

food   supply    . 89 

Wheat,    improvement   in 93 

problem,    the    89 

"Wheat     Problem,     The,"     by 

Sir   William    Crookes 90 

Wheat,   Prof.   Biff  en's    124 

Whiskey,    defined    268,  269 

"Widows    and    Orphans,"    and 
the   alcohol   trade 283 


Woman  and  eugenics 224,  340 

,  employment  of  340-341 

,  the  higher  education  of, 

non-eugenic  effects  of 101 

Women,  married,  and  labour..  312 

,  secret  drinking  by 268 

,  selection  for  marriage  by  223 

Work,  the  eugenic  necessity  of  305 
Writing,  the  art  of,  as  a  means 

of    transmission     302 

"Yellow  Peril,"  the   88,  311 

"  Youth,  its  Education,  Regi- 
men and  Hygiene,"  by  Stan- 
ley Hall 1 368 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Aristotle     ....................  303 

-  on   motherhood    .........  191 

-  on    racial    decay  .....  296,  297 

-  ,  "Politics,"   by    .........  191 

Arnold,    Matthew     ...........  335 

-  ,  Thomas     ...............  335 

Asquith,    H.    H  ...............  271 

Bach     .......................  348 

-  family,  the   .............  335 

Bacon     on     the     command     of 

Nature    ....  .........  15,    29,  4tf 

Balfour,    A.    J  ...............  264 

-  ,  -  ,  on    decadence    .... 
..................  271,     323-324 

-  ,  -  ,  on    intemperance..  271 

-  ,  •  -  ,  on    legislation    ....  270 

-  ,  •  -  ,  on    Licensing    Bill 

if    1908    ...................  270 

-  ,  -  ,  on    politics    ...  330-331 
Ballantyne,  Dr.,   on  the  unborn 

infant     ....................  371 

Barker,  Ernest,  on  the  de- 

struction  of   marriage  .......  191 

Bateson,  Prof.  W.,  "Methods 

and  Scope  of  Genetics,"  by  354 
Bateson,  Prof.  W.,  on  educa- 

tion    ......................   137 

-  ,  -  ,  on  Mendelism    ....  354 

Beethoven  ......    145,    1.67,   334,  339 

Bertillon,    M.,    on    marital    lon- 

gevity      ...................  .    222 

Biffen,  Prof.,  and  his  experi- 
ments on  wheat  .............  124 

Booth,  the  Rt.  Hon.  Charles, 
on  the  extent  of  starvation..  93 

Bouchacourt,  on  the  care  of 
motherhood  ...............  166 

Bourneville,    on    lead    poisoning  287 

Branthwaite,  Dr.  R.  Welsh  264,  278 

-  ,  -  ,       "  Inebriety,       Its 
Causation    and    Control/'    by 

71    (M 


.............  s-v-.v  371 

—  •  ,  -  ,  on   alcoholism  as   a 
symptom  of  degeneracy  .....  251 


Brieux,    "  Les   A  varies  " 293 

Brooks,   Graham,   on  the   Negro 

race     ix 

Brouardel  on  parental  morphino- 

mania      245 

Browning,    Robert    154 

Buckle    309 

Buddha     167 

Bulstrode,    Dr.,    on   tuberculosis 

209    (note) 

Burchell     59 

Burns,   the    Rt.    Hon.   John,   on 

motherhood      37 

Byron  on  the  decay  of  nations  295 

Cakebread,   Jane,   the   case  of. . 

257,    260,    264,  275 


Carlyle,  Thomas 355 

,  — — ,     on   history,  294    (.note) 

"The  French  Revo- 


lution," by  294  (note) 

Chatterton-Hill,  George, 

"  Heredity    and    Selection    in 

Sociology,"  by 360 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  on  eugenics 

181  (note) 

Clouston,  T.  S.,  "  The  Hygiene 

of  Mind,"  by 370 

Cobden,  Richard  ,  . . .  9 

Cohn  on  the  multiplication  of 

bacteria  183 

Coleridge  303 

Combemale,  experiments  of,  in 

alcoholism  i . . .  244 

Constable,  "Poverty  and 

Hereditary  Genius,"  by 356 

Copernicus  208 

Cottrell,  Mr.,  on  the  population 

of  London  86 

Crackanthorpe,  Mr.  Montague, 

and    the    Eugenics    Education 

Society  366 

,  ,  on  the  birth  rate..  109 

,  ,  "  Population  and 

Progress,"    by    ..,,..,...,..  340 


INDEX 


385 


Crichton-Browne,  Sir  James, 
and  the  Eugenics  Education 

Society     372 

,  ,  on    education    143 

Crookes,    Sir    William 96 

,  ,  on  the  wheat  sup- 
ply    90 

, ,  "  The   Wheat   Prob-     " 

lem,"  by    90 

Darwin,    Charles  47,    273,    349,  356 

,  : ,  and  the  effect  of 

music  on  plants 145 

,  ,  centenary  of  the 

birth  of  v 

,  ,  his  talented  ances- 
try and  kindred  336 

,  ,  on    degeneration    . .   197 

,  ,  on  national  rise 

and  decline 318  (note) 

,  ,  on  natural  selection 

94,  157,  30i,  302 

,  ,  on  sexual  selection 

76,221 

,  ,  on  the  elephant 

82  (.note) 

,  ,  on   the   future 345 

,  ,  on  the  multiplica- 
tion of  the  unfit 263 

,  ,  on  the  queen  bee . .     48 

,  — — ,  on  vitality  and  mus- 
cularity    76  (note) 

,  ,      Ruskin    on 109 

,  ,  "  The  Descent  of 

Man,"  by 197,  221,  323,  361 

,  ,  "  The  Origin  of 

Species,"  by  48,  82  (note),  361 

Darwin,  Erasmus,  the  grand- 
father of  Charles  Darwin.. 

••••••••-. 336,  337 

,  Francis      336 

,  Sir    George    336 

Demme  and  parental  alcoholism  245 

Disraeli    on    circumstances 171 

Down,  Dr.   Langdon,  on  drunk- 
enness and  the  feeble-minded  254 
Dunlop,  Dr.  A.   R.,  on  habitual 
drunkenness      254 

Eccles,     McAdam,     on     alcohol 

and    the    racial    organs 242 

,  f  on     drunkenness...   254 

Ellis,    Havelock,    "A   Study  of    * 
British    Genius,"    by 356 

,  ,  "  Man  and  Wom- 
an," by  368 

,  ,  on    drunkenness    . .  253 

,  ,  on   sexual   selection 

•  • :  •• 234-236 

,  ,  on     socialism     and 

education     151 

— — ,  ,  "  Sexual      Selection 

in    Man,"   by 234 

Emerson   on   mass   versus  mind  109 

on     the    morality     of    the 

universe 41 

Epictetus    on     fools 149 

Etienne  on  opinion  as  ruler...  271 


Fere    on    alcohol 239 

Ferrier,  Prof.  David,  on  habit- 
ual drunkenness  253 

Finot,  Jean,  on  the  Negro 
race  ix 

,  ,  "  Race  Prejudice," 

by  369 

Fleck,  Dr.,  on  drunkenness  and 
the  feeble-minded  254 

Forel,    Prof.    August..   19,    157,  363 

,  ,  "Die  Sexuel 

Frage,"  by...  149,  279,  293,  372 

,  ,  "  Hygiene  of  Nerves 

and  Mind,"  by 279,  370 

, . » .on  alcohol  as  a 

racial  poison  - 285 

,  ,  on  alcoholism  and 

heredity  279 

,  ,  on    education..   148-150 

,  ,  on  our  duty  to  pos- 
terity   39 

,  ,  on  the  future  of 

the  race  198 

,  ,  on  the  nervous  sys- 
tem    60 

,  ,  on  the  sexual  edu- 
cation of  children 159 

Galton,    Francis   ....  125,   238,  345 

•  ,  and  acquired  char- 
acters, the  non-transmission 
of 130  (note),  251,  300 

,  ,  and    biometrics ....      xi 

— -,  ,  and  eugenics,  posi- 
tive and  negative 199 

,  ,  and  G.  B.  Shaw. . .  178 

,  ,  and  the  Eugenics 

Education  Society  371 

,  ,  and  the  law  of  re- 
gression towards  mediocrity.  334 

,  ,  "  Eugenics  as  a 

Factor  in  Religion,"  4  by 358 

,  ,  "Eugenics,  its 

Definition,  Scope,  and 
Aims,"  by 364 

,  ,  "Hereditary  Gen- 
ius," by  

i*3»  130,  .335,.  35i  (note),  356 

,  ,  his  kinship  to  Dar- 
win    336 

,  ,  "  Inquiries  into 

Human  Faculty,"  by 

;.••;  105,  146,  337,  357 

,  ,  Memories  of  my 

Life,"  by  v,  357 

,  ,  "Natural  Inherit- 
ance," by  357 

,  ,  on  ancestry,  a  ra- 
tional pride  in 160 

,  ,  on  breeding  for 

ability  175 

• — ,  — ,  —  «ne,r?y"    76,  175 

, ,  health  ..     101,  175 

,  — — ,  on    civic    worth....     78 

,  ,  on  civilisation    ....  132 

,  ,  on    energy    

223  (.note),  336 


386 


INDEX 


Galton,  Francis,  on  eugenics, 
the  meaning  and  the  aims  of 
180,  346 

,  ,  on  functionally  pro- 
duced modifications,  the  non- 
inheritance  of  248 

,  ,  on  genius,  hered- 
itary    123,  130 

,  ,  ,  the  quality 

of  130  (note) 

,  ,  on  human  intelli- 
gence    45 

,  ,  on    human    variety.   345 

Galton,  Francis,  on  marriage, 
eugenic  192 

• ,  , ,  late    .... 105 

,  ,  -,  the  subsidisa- 
tion of  232 

• ,  ,  on  motherhood,  the 

subsidisation  of  172 

,  ,  on  national-  eugen- 
ics   .  . .  132 

,  ,  on  national  rise 

and  decline  . ....  318 

,  ,  on  public  opinion, 

the  formation  of 17 

,  — : — ,  o  n  society,  the 

eugenic  value  of  the  various 
classes  of  118 

• ,  ,  on  sociology,  the 

duties  of  318,  319 

,  — — ,  on  the  desirable 

qualities  342 

• ,  ,  on  the  future  of 

man  346 

,  ,  on  the  production 

of  genius  335 

,  — — ,  on  the  production 

of  talent  340 

,  ,  "  Probability  the 

Foundation  of  Eugenics,"  by  365 

,  — — ,  "  Restrictions  i  n 

Marriage,"  by  ....  214,  236,  365 

- — -,  ,  "  Studies  i  n  Na- 
tional Eugenics,"  by  365 

• ,  ,  "  The  Possible  Im- 
provement of  the  Human 
Breed,  under  existing  Condi- 
tions of  Law  and  Senti- 
ment," by  364 

Gaskell,  Dr.  W.  H.,  "The 
Origin  of  Vertebrates,"  by 
57  (note) 

Geddes,  Prof.  Patrick,  on 
Government  139 

-,  — — ,  "  The  Evolution  of 

Sex,"  by,  and  Prof.  J.  A. 
Thomson  361 

Gibbon    313    (note) 

on    history     294 

on    the    necessity^  for    ad- 
vance   or    retrogression 307 

Gladstone,  Herbert,  and  the 
treatment  of  chronic  in- 
ebriates by  the  London 
County  Council  256,  257 

Godwin,  William,  on  litera- 
ture    303  (note) 

Goethe  on  activity 337    (note) 


Goethe  on   fate  and  chance 14 

on    ignorance    258 

on   marriage    193 

011    the    education    of    race  156 

Gorst,     Sir    John,     "The    Chil-     " 

dren    of    the    Nation,"    by...   370 

Hall,  Prof.  Stanley,  "Adoles- 
cence," by  368 

• >  ,  "  Youth,  its  Educa- 
tion, Regimen  and  Hygiene," 
by  368 

Helvetius  on  the  influence  of 
education  147 

Hobbes,  Thomas,   on   "  Words,"   121 

,  ,  "  Leviathan,"  by. . 

121  (note) 

Holmes,  Mr.  Thomas,  on  ha- 
bitual drunkenness  254 

Horsley,  Sir  Victor,  and  Mary 
D.  Sturge,  "  Alcohol  and  the 
Human  Body,"  by 370 

Howard,  G.  E.,  "  A  History  of 
Matrimonial  Institutions,"  by  361 

Huxley _ 33,  45,   66,  324 

,  "  Evolution  and  Ethics," 

by 30 

• on  cosmic  nature 

28,  40,  44  (note) 

on    Pasteur 109 

,  on    public    opinion 155 

on     the    multiplication     of 

the    unfit    263 

Im  Thurn,  Mr.,  on  marriage 
customs  of  Guiana.., 213 

Jones,  Dr.  Robert,  on  the  case 
of  Jane  Cakebread 264 

Jones,  W.  H.  S.,  "Malaria:  a 
Neglected  Factor  in  the  His- 
tory of  Greece  and  Rome," 
by  369 

Joubert     20 

Kant    4,  99 

on    the    influence    of    edu- 
cation        147 

Keats 52 

Kellogg,  Vernon  L.,  "  Dar- 
winism To-day,"  by 361 

Kelvin,  Lord,  his  services  to 
life  108 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  and  imperial- 
ism    282,  283 

,  ,  on  breeds  in  the 

making  ^ 283 

— ; — ,  ,  on    emigration     ....      10 

Kirby,  Miss,  on  the  feeble- 
minded   254 

Kirkup,  Thomas,  on  Malthu- 
sianism  95 

Koch    and    tuberculosis 208 

Lamarck     41 

on   inheritance  of  acquired 

characters ^  153,    299-301,  303 

versus    Weismann . . .  240,  242 


INDEX 


387 


Lankester,  Sir  E.  Ray,  on 
man,  the  controller  of 
nature  46 

—,  ,  on  the  multiplica- 
tion of  man 10,  30,  81 

,  ,  on  the  struggle   for 

existence     47,  324 

, ,  "  The    Kingdom    of 

Man,"    by    46  (.note) 

Leonaf do    da    Vinci 306 

Letourneau,  Prof.,  "  The  Evo- 
lution of  Marriage,"  by....  362 

Le\\in   on  lead  poisoning 287 

Lister,  Lord,  his  services  to 
life  108 

Livingstone,  Dr.,  on  African 
marriage  customs  213 

Lock,  R.  H.,  "Variation, 
Heredity  and  Evolution,"  by  361 

Lombroso,  criminological  work 
of  205 

London,    Bishop    of,    on   the    fall- 
ing  birth-rate    112 

Love,    Dr.,   on   deaf -mutism. ...  201 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  on  human 
suffering  149 

Lydston,  G.  F.,  "  The  Diseases 
of  Society:  the  Vice  and 
Crime  Problem,"  by 369 

MacCunn,  Prof.,  on  the  in- 
fant mind  142 

,  ,  "  The  Making  of 

Character,"  by  142 

MacDougal,  Dr.  T.  D.,  on 
"  Heredity  and  Environic 
Forces,"  243 

McDougall,  Dr.  W.,  on  infant 
mortality  26 

,  ,  o  n  transmissible 

characters  134 

,  ,  "  Social  Psychol- 
ogy," by 134 


Magee,  Archbishop   281 

Malthus,  T.   R.,    19,  362 

his   theory    . 
ignorance   as 


,  his   theory    90,  94 

s  to  his 


essay 


-,  importance     of     his 


95 


doctrine   to-day    95 

,  ,  "  The  Principles  of 

Population/'    by    ....  94,  96,  302 

Marcus  Aurelius    345 

Marshall,  Dr.  C.  F.,  on  alcohol 

and    syphilis     293 

,  ,  "  Syphilology,"^    by  293 

Maudsley,    Dr.,    on    eugenics..  217 
Mendel,  the  theory  of  124,  354,  353 

Meredith,    George 47,    267,  333 

,  ,  "  The      Ordeal     o  f 

Richard    Feverel,"    by.  128    (note) 
Metchnikoff,     on    age    at    mar- 
riage        103 

,  "The    Nature    of    Man," 

by    103 

Mill,    Tames    335 

,  John   Stuart    211,  335 

,  ,  on    nature    42 

Milton      338 


Morgan,  Prof.  Lloyd,  "  Sur- 
vival Value,"  51 

Mott,  Dr.  F.  W.,  on  habitual 
drunkenness  253 

Mozart    145 

Napoleon,  the  wars  of,  cause 
of  reversed  selection  in 
France  329 

Newman,  Dr.  George,  on  the 
falling  birth-rate  98  (note) 

,  ,  "  Infant  Mortality," 

by  98,  370 

Newshqlme,  Dr.  A.,  on  tuber- 
culosis   211 

,  ,  "The  Prevention 

of  Tuberculosis,"  by 370 

Newton,   Sir  Isaac  7,    167,   334,  348 

Nietzsche  and  the  Darwinian 
theory  57 

and  the   super-man  theory     28 

and     "  transvaluation  " . . .    115 

on   organic   evolution 181 

Oliver,  Sir  Thomas,  on  lead 
poisoning  286-287,  288 

,  ,  "  Diseases  of  Oc- 
cupation," by  ....286  (note),  370 

Palestrina     145 

Palmerston,    Lord    150 

Parsons,    Dr.    Elsie    Clews,    on 

diminution    of    offspring 186 

,  ,  on     parentage.    185,  186 

,  ,  "  The    Family,"    by  363 

Pascal     59 

Pasteur   and   tuberculosis    208 

,  his   value    to   the    French 

nation     107 

on    the    abolition    of    dis- 
ease          82 

Paterson,  W.  R.,  on  slavery, 
the  cause  of  the  fall  of 
empires  326 

,  ,  "  The  Nemesis  of 

Nations,"  by  326 

Pearson,    Prof.    Karl 363 

,  ,  and    biometrics    ...      xi 

,  ,  "  National  Life 

from  the  Standpoint  of 
Science,"  by  3^3,  365 

,  ,  on  national  rise  and 

decline 318  (note),  323 

— ,  ,  on  the  multiplica- 
tion of  the  yellow  races....  89 

, ,  "The  Scope  and 

Importance  to  the  State  of 
the  Science  of  National  Eu- 
genics," by  365,  366 

Pericles     339 

Petrie,  Prof.  Flinders,  "  Janus 
in  Modern  Life,"  by 25 

,  ,  on  infantile  mor- 
tality    25 

Plato    and    motherhood 190 

and     the     destruction     of 

the    family    193,  364 


388 


INDEX 


Plato  on  the  duty  of   Govern- 
ments       320 

on    racial    decay. . . .  296-298 

on     the     sanctity     of     mar- 
riage      363 

on    the    State    as   mother.  364 

,  "  The    Republic,"    of  362,  363 

Pope,    on    genius    and    insanity  204 
Potts,  Dr.  W.  A.,  on  "  The  Re- 
lation  of   Alcohol   to   Feeble- 
mindedness"      248,  250 

Ranke,   Prof.,  on  the  mind  of 
man     O7 

Ravenhill,       Miss       Alice,       on 
"  Education  for  Motherhood  " 
37 

,  on  the  education  of 

girls      ;  37i 

Reid,  Dr.  Archdall,  on  alcohol  239 
,  ,  on  humanitarianism 

and  deterioration  28 

,  ,  on  the  marriage  of 

drunkards  27,2 

, ,  on  the  resistance  of 

the  germ-plasm 290 

,  ,  "  Alcoholism,  A 

Study  in  Heredity,"  by 370 

,  ,  "  The  Principles  of 

Heredity,"  by  360 

Rembrandt  4 

Rennert  on  lead  poisoning  287,  288 
Rentoul,  Dr.  R.  R.,  on  the 

sterilization     of    mental    and 

physical  degenerates  3°7 

,  ,  "Race  Culture  or 

Race  Suicide,"  by 367 

Reynolds,  Sir  Alfred,  on  the 

treatment  of  inebriates.  262,  266 
Roche,  Sir  Boyle,  on  posterity  13 

Roques  on  lead  poisoning 286 

Ross,  Prof.  Ronald,  "  Malaria, 

A    Neglected    Factor    in    the 

History       of       Greece       and 

Rome,"  introduced  by 369 

,  ,  on  malaria  as  a 

cause  of  national  decay.  301,  320 
Rowntree,  B.  Seebohm,  on  the 

extent  of  starvation 93 

Ruskin,  John,  "  Munera  Pul- 

veris,"  by  35<>  (note),  371 

,  "Time  and  Tide,"  by.. 

150,  343,  371 

,  "Unto  this  Last,"  by...  371 

— —  on  Darwin  _•  •  109 

on     education     and     in- 

on  life  the  only  wealth.. 

ig,    152,306 

on  marriage 343 

on   mass   versus   mind....  115 

on   posterity    333 

on    the    duty    of    Govern- 
ments        20,  320 

on    the    future    of    man . .   349 

on     the     manufacture     of 

souls     313 

on  the  neglect  of  children  166 

on  the  neglect  of  woman  166 

— -  on   work    305 


St.    Francis     348 

Saleeby,  Dr.,  "Alcohol  and  In- 
fancy," by  247-48 

r,  ,  and     G.     B.     Shaw, 

his    controversy    on    marriage 
with     181 

,  ,       on     biology     and 

history 294      (.note) 

,  "  Evolution,     the     Master 

Key,"    by    168 

,  ,  "  Health,     Strength 

and  Happiness,"  by   .    136   (note) 

— — ,  ,  "  Individualism    and 

Collectivism,"  by   ....   115   (note) 

,  ,  "  Obstacles  to  Eu- 
genics," by  203  (note) 

,  ,  on  London's  in- 
ebriates, the  case  of 262 

,  ,  on   progress    328 

,  ,  on  the  survival- 
value  of  religion 351 

,  ,  on  widows  and  or- 
phans made  by  alcohol 283 

,  ,  "The        Essential 

Factor    of    Progress,"    by...  304 

Salisbury,  Lord,  his  attack  on 
evolution  50 

Salisbury,  Lord,  on  Spain  a 
dying  nation  310 

Sandow IS4 

and    the    development    of 

physique     72 

Scharlieb,  Mrs.,  on  maternal 
alcoholism  248  (note) 

,  ,  «  The  Drink  Prob- 
lem," by  248  (note) 

Schopenhauer  on  love  in- 
trigue    228  (note) 

Schubert     52,.  56 

Seton,   Ernest  Thompson,  on  ani- 
mal   marriage    186 

Shakespeare     

7,    145,    167,    283,    295,    334,  339i 
348 

,  ancestry  of  122,  126 

,  quoted  x,  66   (note),   no,  322 

Shaw,  Dr.  Claye,  on  maternal 
alcoholism  246 

,  George   Bernard    ....  96,  193 

,  ,  on    eugenics    .   178,  179 

,  ,  on    heredity    f.   117 

,  ,  on      marriage,      his 

controversy  with  Dr.   Saleeby  181 

,  ,  on    motherhood ....  190 

,  ,  on     the     State     as 

mother      180 

Shelley     180 

Sii.ipson,  Sir  James,  on  the  in- 
heritance of  acquired  char- 
acters    155 

Sims,  G.  R.,  on  children,  the 
protection  of  274 

,  ,  on  habitual  drunk- 
ards, the  treatment  of 257 

, ,  on  "the  cry  of  the 

children"       342 

,  ,  "  The  Black  Stain," 

by     274,  37i 


INDEX 


389 


Sims,  G.  R.,  "  The  Cry  of  the 

Children,"    by    274.  371 

Smith,   Adam    19 

Socrates 362,  363 

Sombart,    Dr.,    on    the    popula- 
tion of  Germany   87 

Sophocles,   quoted    59 

Spencer,  Herbert  4,  10,  94,  344,  348 
,  absence    of    early    educa- 
tion   of    147 

and  evolution    48,  54 

and   functionally  produced 

modifications     127 

and   Huxley    29 

and     his     reply     to     Lord 

Salisbury's    attack    on    evolu- 
tion          50 

and    "  social    organisms".  296 

on  the  cosmic  process....     28 

on  the  defencelessness   of 

man     66 

on    education     149 

on    education    for    parent- 
hood    167 

-  on    human    fertility. .  .100-105 

on        individuation        and 

genesis 334 

on    marital    longevity  221-223 

on    marriage     186 

on    natural    selection 39 

on   parenthood    99 

on  the  future  of  man  349-350 

on    the    laws   of    multipli- 
cation      96,  97 

on    woman    and    selection 

for    marriage    222 

,  the     ancestry     of 174 

,  the    "  Autobiography  "    of 

39,     66,     73,   174 

,  "  The    Data    of    Ethics," 

by    350     (.note) 

,  "  the   survival   of   the   fit- 
test "...26  (note),  47,  48,  95,  3oi 

,  "  Education,"    by     367 

Spencer    Herbert,    "The    Study 

of    Sociology,"    by    ....  222,  368 
,  "  The    Principles    of    Bi- 
ology,"  by    98,  362 

Spinoza 52,  56 

Stark,  Dr.,  on  marital  longevity  222 
Sturge,   Mary  D.,  and  Sir  Vic- 
tor   Horsley,    "  Alcohol    and 

the    Human    Body,"    by 370 

Sullivan,  Dr.  W.  C,  "Alcohol- 
ism," by   244,  279,  370 

,  — — ,  o  n     alcohol     and 

alcoholism    ...  239,    245-248,  255 
Sutherland   on   parental  care. .  186 

Theognis   on   pecuniary  inherit- 
ance     115 

on    the    duty    of    Govern- 
ments       320 

Thomas.  W.   I.,  "  Sex  and  So- 
ciety,     by 368 

Thompson,     Francis     147 

Thomson,  Prof.  J.  A.,  "Hered- 
ity,"  by   113,  353 


Thomson,  Prof.  J.  A.,  on  "in- 
heritance,"    126  (.note) 

,  ,  on    race    culture...   113 

,  ,  on    reversion    127 

,  ,  "  The   Evolution   of 

Sex,"    by,    and    Patrick   Ged- 

des     361 

• ,  ,  translator  of    Weis- 

mann     360 

,  M.      R.,      translator      of 

Weismann     . . . . 360 

Thoreau,    quoted     201 

Tille    on    man    the    wealth    of 

nations     19 

Tintoretto      334 

Turner,  Sir  William,  ou  the 
human  foot  69 

Ur^uhart,  Dr.  A.  R.,  on  ha- 
bitual drunkenness  254 

Veraon,  H.  M.,  "  Variations 
in  Animals  and  Plants," 
by  360,  361 

Villemin   and   tuberculosis 208 

Waddington,  Mr.  Quintin,  his 
translation  of  Aulus  Gellius 

313     (note) 

Wagner,    "  Siegfried "     352 

Wallace,   Alfred   Russel    363 

,  ,  o  n          matrimonial 

choice  by  women    224-227 

, ,  on  natural  selec- 
tion    94 

Watson,  William,  the  patriot- 
ism of viii 

Watts,   G.   F. 4 

Wedgwood,  Josiah,  maternal 
grandfather  of  Charles  Dar- 
win   ; 336 

Weismann,   August. .  238,    244,  250 

,  his      controversy      with 

Lamarck 240 

,  on    paternal    alcoholism . . 

240-242 

,  "  The       Germ-Plasm :       a 

Theory   of   Heredity,"   by... 

241,    360 

-,  "  The  Evolution  The- 
ory," by  360 

Wellington,   Duke  of 147 

Wells,  H.  G.,  on  the  multi- 
plication of  the  unfit IS 

on       Spencer's      terminol- 
ogy     48,    49»    55 

Westermarck,  Dr.  E.,  on  mar- 
riage    152,  186 

,  ,  on  the  control  of 

marriage  213 

,  ,  "The  History  of 

Human  Marriage,"  by 362 

Wordsworth    ....  4,    283,    348,  350 

— —,  absence  of  early  educa- 
tion of  137 

on  the   decay  of  nations.  328 

,  quoted      39,  320 


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